Supreme Court refuses to hear Brown's appeal on prison crowding

SACRAMENTO — The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to hear Gov. Jerry Brown's appeal of an order to reduce prison crowding, further narrowing the governor's options in his quest to end what he characterizes as an arbitrary cap on the inmate population.

The cap was ordered by three federal judges in California, and Brown had asked the high court to remove it. Having lost that bid, he will continue to pursue a request to the lower court for more time to comply, according to a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman.

The Supreme Court justices said they found no grounds to take up the population limit, dispatching the governor's request in a single sentence: "The appeal is dismissed for want of jurisdiction."

Brown had no immediate response to the decision. A spokeswoman in his corrections department, Deborah Hoffman, issued a statement saying that the administration was "disappointed."

While awaiting the Supreme Court's decision, the governor recently asked the three-judge panel to give him three years to lower inmate numbers for the long term by, for example, expanding rehabilitation programs that could help keep offenders from returning to prison once they leave.

The court gave the state an extra month instead, until Jan. 27, and ordered officials to conduct settlement talks with lawyers for the inmates whose lawsuits led to the population cap. A report on those mediation efforts is due next week.

Brown and lawmakers approved funding in September for the rehabilitation programs, and the governor has touted "historic reforms" that have already been made — such as a new law requiring reconsideration of some sentences — that need time to work.

"California will continue to build on these landmark reforms with our law enforcement and local government partners," Hoffman said Tuesday.

If the settlement talks do not yield a result that is acceptable to the court, Brown could be left with more difficult options: Spend hundreds of millions of dollars to rent privately owned prison beds or concede to major changes in whom California incarcerates.

The governor so far has fought proposals to shorten the sentences of inmates who are considered at low risk to re-offend, saying that would threaten public safety. He has vowed to keep prisoners locked up, sending them to private facilities across the country if necessary.

But the judges have temporarily barred him from moving more prisoners out of state.

"I'm among those who think there are no easy solutions," said Michael Romano, director of the Three Strikes Project at Stanford University.

Romano said thousands of inmates could leave the system relatively quickly if local courts speed up reviews of sentences in about 2,000 pending three-strikes cases. Californians voted last year to ease the state's three-strikes law and apply its new standards retroactively.

The judges ordered that the mediation discussions include three-strikes prisoners, although Brown's administration has said the backlog of unheard cases is not its responsibility.

The state's prisons have long been beset by problems in the delivery of medical care and psychiatric services, inmate suicides and lawsuits over other conditions. The three judges ruled that the problems were due to overcrowding and in 2009 ordered the state to remove about 43,000 inmates.

The state moved some prisoners to private facilities, built a new medical prison and kept more than 20,000 prisoners and parole violators in county jails rather than send them to state prisons. Officials have also signed agreements with private prison operators for almost 3,800 beds at three facilities.

The latest of those is an $86-million, three-year contract announced Tuesday to take over a California City prison that houses federal immigration detainees.

But a corrections department spokeswoman said Tuesday that the state still has 4,400 more prisoners than the cap permits.

As part of its contract, Corrections Corp. of America will make the first $10 million in upgrades that might be needed to house California's higher-security inmates. After that, the bill falls to California taxpayers.

If Brown doesn't want to give up yet on his effort to be free of the inmate cap, one expert said, he might still be able to find ways to contest the cap before a lower court.

There is no "federal order that is not appealable," said Kent Scheidegger, an official of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. "It is a matter of finding" the right procedure, he said.

Scheidegger's Sacramento-based group submitted a brief to the Supreme Court on behalf of four former California governors, siding with Brown by arguing that the cap is unreasonable in light of the improvements California has made.

In the meantime, prisoners' lawyers are pressing for even greater court intervention, seeking new orders on treatment of inmates.

"Prisoners are still suffering from terrible healthcare," said Don Specter of the Prison Law Office, which represents inmates in the federal court cases.

"Reports from the court experts still show that prisoners are at great risk of injury or death from the lack of adequate medical care," he said.

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

Immigration bills benefited from a more engaged Gov. Brown

SACRAMENTO — Tom Ammiano was frustrated. 

Gov. Jerry Brown had refused to meet with him, said the Democratic assemblyman from San Francisco, to talk about the Trust Act. Ammiano had proposed it to prevent immigrants in the U.S. illegally from being turned over to federal officials for possible deportation when arrested by local authorities.

Eventually, Brown skewered the measure with his veto pen, saying the bill was "fatally flawed" because it might have let some serious criminals escape deportation.

That was last year. This year, things were different. Ammiano said the two had multiple meetings in Brown's office, where they discussed its threadbare carpet, their shared Roman Catholicism — and the Trust Act.

"He said, 'I have some tweaks,'" Ammiano recalled. "Then we talked turkey and … came up with what everybody could live with."

Brown signed the measure into law about a week ago, one of 11 immigrant-related bills he accepted this year. He also significantly expanded driver's licenses for immigrants without documents. He rejected a measure to allow noncitizens to serve on juries, but gave those in the U.S. illegally permission to be lawyers and signed a bill protecting them from employers who threaten to report their status.

Brown's embrace of new immigrant rights is a shift from three years ago, when he openly opposed the driver's license idea while running for governor. He signed a small handful of immigrant-rights bills last year, permitting driver's licenses for those eligible for temporary federal work permits and giving undocumented college students access to public financial aid. But mostly, he stayed focused on the state's budget morass.

Now, with the fiscal crisis behind him, legislators describe the governor as more approachable and engaged. Instead of being handed off to his staffers, they hashed out differences with him face to face.

It helped that the Legislature's 25-member Latino caucus, which led the charge on many immigrant bills, is mostly Democratic and that the party won supermajorities in both houses last November. This year's efforts also coincided with a new recognition of California's changing demographics: Even the Republican Party that once rallied voters against illegal immigrants has launched a Latino outreach effort.

"There is a change," said Brown, who is expected to run for reelection next year in a state where 20% of voters are Latino and 10% are of Asian descent. "It's in part the sheer numbers and participation by immigrants in the life of our communities. It's also the advocacy and impressive work of immigrant groups and their supporters."

…

The driver's license law was long in the making.

Los Angeles City Councilman Gil Cedillo began working on the issue in 1997, when he was first elected to the Legislature. He eventually persuaded lawmakers to pass a bill that Gov. Gray Davis signed in 2003.

Arnold Schwarzenegger canceled the measure later that year, after replacing Davis in the recall election.

Ten years on, "what [has] changed was the political leadership and … the political climate," Cedillo said in an interview last week.

Even so, the license expansion would have foundered this year but for one lawmaker's chance remark to Brown.

The bill's author, Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Watsonville), planned to table it amid a fight over a distinguishing mark on the licenses — something Brown said federal law required.

With only one more day to go in the legislative session, Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) mentioned the stalled bill to the governor in a Capitol hallway. The senator said Brown, surprised, told him: "Send me the bill. I'll sign it."

Seizing the moment, DeLeon and a few colleagues revived the bill in the Senate, which passed it just hours before the Legislature adjourned. The Assembly quickly followed suit.

A couple of weeks later, more than 40 domestic workers — many of them Latino immigrants — were ushered into the governor's inner office, where they tearfully watched him sign another long-sought bill. It requires overtime pay for nannies, healthcare aides and other personal attendants, a goal of community activists since 2006.

State signs deal to park prisoners in Adelanto

California has signed a contract with an international prison company to lease space for 1,400 inmates — 700 of whom will be housed in the company’s Adelanto lockup.

Florida-based The Geo Group announced Monday that it had signed deals with the state for housing prisoners in two lower-security prisons it owns in California, one in the High Desert city of Adelanto and one in the Kern County community of McFarland.

This is the second in-state contract with a private prison operator, said state Department of Corrections spokesman Jeffrey Callison. Separately, the state has contracts for 8,500 prisoners kept in privately owned prisons in other states.

Monday’s contracts come before Gov. Jerry Brown learns whether federal judges will grant his request for a three-year delay in the court’s orders to cap the state’s prison population. That decision is expected before Friday.

“We are thankful for the confidence placed in our company by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,” said George C. Zoley, chairman and CEO of GEO, in a statement. “The reactivation of our Central Valley and Desert View Modified Community Correctional facilities will play an important role in helping meet the need for correctional bed space in the State of California.”

It was just last year when the state reportedly said it would end a contract with Geo to house parole violators in McFarland, but Brown later extended the contract through fiscal 2016.

The state had another contract in 2011 for space at the Adelanto facility, but it too was terminated, only to be brought back now.

Callison said that the CDC ended its contract in Adelanto with The Geo Group in 2011 because the contract expired and “at that time determined that we didn’t need the space. Now we have decided that we do. That is one of the advantages of leased facilities, you can expand or contract according to need.”

With the new deals, Geo said the contracts total $30.7 million annually for five years.

The Adelanto facility will begin to accept inmates by the end of the year.

And that’s a good thing for local law enforcement leaders in Southern California, who say they’ve been feeling the burden of the state’s realignment program.

Prison realignment, implemented on Oct. 1, 2011, aims to reduce the state’s prison population after a federal three-judge panel found the overcrowded conditions in prisons kept inmates from receiving adequate health care.

Under Assembly Bill 109, lower-level offenders, those convicted of non-serious, non-violent, non-sexual offenses, are monitored and housed by county institutions.

Police chiefs are upset that some inmates released in the name of overcrowding in the county are committing the same kinds of crimes for which they were first sentenced.

“Anything we can do to free up pressure on the county jail and allow them to stop this revolving door is to our advantage,” San Bernardino Police Chief Robert Handy said.

But not all agree that private prisons are a solution to the state’s inmate housing issues.

State Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, has been outspoken on the issue of realignment.

“I don’t believe simply expanding capacity will provide a durable solution to our prison overcrowding crisis,” Lieu said Monday. “I hope the federal court will extend the prison reduction cap by two or three years. If they do that, then I hope we don’t need to complete the private prison contract.”

Lieu said California has one of the highest recidivism rates in the nation — between 60 and 70 percent.

“For every 100 prisoners we release, 60 or 70 commit more crimes and end up back in prison. Simply expanding capacity doesn’t address that problem.”

For the city of Adelanto, which has been hard-hit by the recession, the 140 jobs that will be created at the Desert View Modified Community Correctional Facility, will be well-received, officials said.

“Any time we can put more people back to work, that’s a move forward,” said Mayor Cari Thomas.

But Victoria Mena, coordinator of a program that coordinates visits with immigrant detainees at Adelanto, said her first reaction to the news was concern.

“Adelanto has three of the largest detention centers in the country — a federal prison, the county jail and the Adelanto Immigration Center, but there are no (Adelanto) high schools, and the elementary schools are failing. It says a lot about the community and says a lot about where their priorities are,” she said. “There are no after-school clubs and no community centers. Instead it’s the hub of mass incarceration.”

Mena said she’s also concerned about the isolation of the city.

“What happens when people are released?” she asked.

The contract signing completes a prison complex owned by Geo in Adelanto. Two other nearby buildings are leased to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

San Bernardino County sheriff’s office spokeswoman Jodi Miller said the new prison contracts will have no effect on department operations.

The county is working on an application to receive $80 million in state assistance for expansion of the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore.

California Budget Delivers Blow to Government Transparency

Legislation allows local agencies to ignore required procedures ensuring public's 
access to government records, data

By Giana Magnoli, Noozhawk Staff Writer

The state budget that passed the Legislature last week contains language that could gut the California Public Records Act, the 1968 law that requires “the people’s business” to be conducted transparently and ensures that the public has access to most government records.

The Democratic-controlled Legislature approved the $96.3 billion budget Friday, with state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, and Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara, voting for the bill. Assemblyman Katcho Achadjian, R-San Luis Obispo, who represents northern Santa Barbara County, voted against it.

Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign the legislation soon, ensuring the budget is enacted by its July 1 deadline.

Tucked into the bill, however, is a key amendment that could severely hamper the public’s ability to track government spending and hold local officials accountable.

Senate Bill 71 makes portions of the Public Records Act process optional for local government agencies. If the agencies choose not to comply, they won’t have to respond to a public request for information within 10 days or provide any reason for taking longer than 10 days, or they can deny the request altogether. Under the bill, they also can choose an alternate format to release information that is available electronically.

“This is an outrageous loophole for government transparency,” Noozhawkpublisher Bill Macfadyen said. “While claiming to pinch pennies in a $96 billionbudget, legislators are instead making it easier to hide government activities from taxpayers, from the media and from watchdog organizations.

“The public has limited recourse against the formidable power of government, but the requirement of transparency generally makes it a fair fight.”

Under the legislation, local agencies are “encouraged” to follow the Public Records Act “as best practices,” but any agency can merely announce that it will not be compliant at its first regularly scheduled meeting after Jan. 1, 2014, and annually afterward.

The bill takes effect as soon as Brown signs it, however, so government agencies that are predisposed to withholding information could do so now, and not declare it until January, noted Jim Ewert, general counsel for the California Newspapers Publishers Association.

“It’s a little disconcerting to say the least, and that’s putting it lightly,” he said.

Ewert and his organization hope to sit down with legislators and stakeholders to “try and clean this up,” but they don’t have much time before the budget’s deadline at the end of the month.

“For agencies that decide they no longer want to follow these provisions in the act, it’s going to create a very difficult situation for both the public and the agencies,” Ewert said. “I think this is going to be a litigation cauldron because nobody’s going to know what the scope of the provisions are.”

Eliminating the requirement for agencies to provide electronic records will allow local governments to limit data access, according to the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit public interest group.

Data can be produced in formats that are unusable in databases, perhaps as PDF files instead of Excel files, even if the agency already has the data in the requested format, First Amendment Coalition members wrote in a commentary piece against the SB 71 language.

The bill also could eliminate the requirement for agencies to help people with their requests for information, and give no reason for denying a request. If someone asks for information that an agency argues is exempt, it starts a dialogue about the information and how to request information that is legally available, Ewert said.

“Now, the only way a requester is going to know about that is if he or she sues!” he said. “And agencies can’t be too fond of that either.”

Brown and the Department of Finance argue that the state shouldn’t have to reimburse local agencies for processing these requests, but Ewert said the administration never identified a figure associated with savings for this policy change.

“We can’t even do a cost-benefit analysis because there’s no number!” he exclaimed.

Jackson, who co-sponsored the bill in the Senate, said the measure shifts the cost for maintaining local records to local governments instead of the state, but doesn’t suspend the Public Records Act itself. She said the state currently reimburses local agencies for the cost of their compliance, which she said amounts to “tens of millions of dollars” annually, without much accountability on the real cost to local communities for providing the services.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office didn’t have “an exact number” on this, she said.

“The two major portions of the act — assistance in seeking public records and the notification requirement — were both bills that were passed while I was in the stateAssembly and I supported both of them,” Jackson said. “I and probably most of the people here do support access to public records; this simply shifted the fiscal responsibility.”

Local governments can still charge reasonable costs for copies and processing fees, as they already do.

Jackson acknowledged that the Public Records Act will be optional for governments to follow in the future.

“It’s optional to the extent that local jurisdictions are urged to do best practices and if they choose not to, they’ll have to answer to the local community,” she said.

Jackson, who supported the fight against an unsuccessful proposal by Brown to charge the public a $10 per file court records fee, said accountability should be a priority, but the state can’t afford to pay for local governments to provide records.

“It’s a compromise document, that’s the nature of politics,” she said.

Williams said he doubts many government agencies will change their process, especially with pressure from constituents.

“I’m less than thrilled, but the Commission on State Mandates determined that this category of mandates would be state-reimbursable,” Williams said. “If the legislature hadn’t taken this step, they would have had to reimburse cities and counties for Public Record Act requests which, you know, the state can’t afford.”

He said it came down to priorities, and the “extremely responsible budget” prioritizes public education.

“There was a choice between rolling back the cuts that have happened to community colleges and local schools, and paying for public information requests, and for me that’s a pretty easy choice.”

But Macfadyen argued that legislators have no right to make compromises with the public’s access.

“California’s Public Records Act was passed in 1968 to make sure the people’s business is conducted in full view of all, and voters added it to the state Constitutionin 2004,” he said.

“For Sacramento to turn around and defy the public’s will is a chilling development that threatens the rights of all Californians.”

The City of Santa Barbara plans to continue replying to Public Records Act requests as usual, said Marcelo Lopez, assistant city administrator.

“We’re planning to stay in compliance and honor the way we have replied to requests for public information in the past,” he said.

“If we have the information, we’ll provide it to you.”

Goleta Mayor Roger Aceves wasn’t aware of the specifics included in SB 71, and said he would be checking with city staff to get more information. He noted that the City of Goleta prides itself on being transparent and responding to records requests in a timely manner.

— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached atgmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk,@NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.

Sacramento Bee Tells Legislature: Do What Voters Intended

In a pointed editorial on June 7, 2013, the Sacramento Bee tells California legislators to reject Gov. Brown’s attempt to “borrow” money from the auctions of carbon permits authorized under the state’s cap-and-trade program. That money goes into a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that’s supposed to be used to cut pollution and expand clean energy, with a portion of those investments designated for economically disadvantaged, highly polluted areas.

That provision was written into the bill that authorized the program, AB 32, a law that was resoundingly reaffirmed by voters in 2010.

The Bee editorial concisely explains why the governor’s plan is misguided:

Before a dime is spent on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the money would be used for other purposes, going against everything AB 32 proponents told Californians. The aim of cap and trade is not, they assured voters, to raise money for the state to solve its budget problems. That money, they insisted, can go only toward energy efficiency, clean and renewable energy generation, transmission and storage, and projects in disadvantaged areas disproportionately affected by pollution.

The state has had six years to craft a comprehensive strategy for next steps that new money could buy and should not squander the opportunity. The projects spelled out are exactly what California needs to boost jobs now and reduce emissions – such as retrofits for utilities and large industrial plants, charging stations for electric vehicles, and efficiency upgrades in low-income and middle-income homes.

The state doesn’t need “more time” to flesh out projects; it needs political will to avoid diversions and lobbyist-driven pork barrel projects.

We couldn’t agree more.

via Greenlining.org