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

Deal to ease prison crowding sails through Assembly

SACRAMENTO--A deal brokered by Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders to ease prison crowding passed with overwhelming approval in the Assembly on Wednesday.

By a 75-0 vote, lawmakers approved the proposal, announced Monday, under which the state would ask a panel of three federal judges for time to expand programs aimed at reducing new crimes by ex-cons.

If the judges reject an extension, the state would spend $315 million this year to increase prison capacity in time to comply with the court's order to shrink the prison population by about 9,600 inmates by the end of the year.

The deal broke an impasse over how to comply with the order that pits the governor, Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) and Republican legislative leaders against Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), who sought more funding to address drug abuse and mental illness.

Pérez, speaking on the floor, said the compromise "allows for us to  comply with the three-judge panel’s order but also would not allow for any inmates to be released early from prison."

He took pains to thank the Republican leaders in both houses for coming on board.

"This is a solution that truly was only possible because of the early bipartisan work between the governor, myself and the two Republican leaders," he said.

Even Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-Twin Peaks), one of the most conservative lawmakers in the Capitol, chimed in to voice "rare support" of the speaker's comments.

The warm feelings did not extend to the federal courts. 

"We are here today because the federal courts have forced our hand," said Assemblyman Jeff Gorell(R-Camarillo).

"This is absurd. We ought to add extra desks so the judiciary can join us and continue to make decisions for this body," said Gorell. "It’s a ridiculous precedent."

The bill now heads to the Senate for final legislative approval.

LA Times -By Melanie Mason

PHOTO: Leftwing Nutjob 2011

State Senate Democrats propose alternative to Brown's prison plan

SACRAMENTO - Democratic leaders of the State Senate on Wednesday proposed an extran $200 million annually for rehabilitation, drug and mental health treatment as an alternative to Gov. Jerry Brown's plan for reducing prison overcrowding.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said Wednesday that his Senate Democratic Caucus wants the spending in exchange for a three-year extension of federal judges' Dec. 31 deadline for removing more than 9,600 inmates from state prisons.

Steinberg said the Senate proposal was preferable to Brown's plan to spend $315 million this year and $415 million in each of the following two years on alternate housing for inmates.

"Temporarily expanding California's prison capacity is neither sustainable nor fiscally responsible," Steinberg wrote to Brown and inmates' attorneys Wednesday. Inmate lawsuits led to the judges' ruling that state prisons are unconstitutionally crowded.

Any extension would have to be approved by the judges, who have castigated Brown for stalling on obeying their order to shed more prisoners.

Steinberg, flanked by 16 Democratic senators in a Capitol hallway, said the Senate plan is modeled on a 2009 state program that reduced new prison admissions by nearly 9,600.

The plan won a quick endorsement from the prisoners' attorneys.

"Sen. Steinberg's substantive proposals are acceptable to us and we are open to an extension" if all parties can agree on an approach "that will resolve the chronic overcrowding problem in the state's prisons," the attorneys said in a statement.

The lawyers said they were willing to meet with the governor and discuss ways to end federal court oversight of prison medical care, imposed because the judges said overcrowding led to inadequate healthcare and needless inmate deaths.

The judges are unlikely to extend their Dec. 31 deadline without evidence that the proposal would result in meaningful policy changes, said legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school atUC Irvine.

"I think the court wants to be sure this is not another delay," Chemerinsky said.

Steinberg's plan drew sharp criticism from Gov. Brown and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles).

"It would not be responsible to turn over California's criminal justice policy to inmate lawyers who are not accountable to the people," Brown said in a statement.

"My plan avoids early releases of thousands of prisoners and lays the foundation for longer-term changes, and that's why local officials and law enforcement support it," he said.

Pérez said in a separate statement that he was "deeply skeptical about Senator Steinberg's approach." It would give more power to "prisoner plaintiffs who favor mass release of prisoners," Pérez said.

Steinberg countered that his plan would also avoid early releases. But there may be no more money available for rehabilitation if the state spends more than $1 billion on incarceration over the next three years, the senator said.

Steinberg suggested that a middle ground might be found. "Does this lead to conversation that leads to a solution and compromise? I hope," Steinberg said. "You know me. It's not my way or the highway. We are putting down a settlement proposal here."

But time is short. Steinberg called for an agreement by Sept. 13, the Legislature's last meeting day this year. The settlement would provide for a panel of experts to set a new prison population cap.

In addition, an advisory panel would be formed to restructure sentencing laws so fewer offenders would be sent to prison in the long run.

The state "cannot assume that the plaintiffs and their lawyers, and the federal court, will agree to a three-year extension," said Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber).

On the other hand, nobody wants to be responsible for releasing thousands of inmates early because of a stalemate, said Raphael J. Sonenshein, executive director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A.

"You'd have to think they are going to find some accommodation," Sonenshein said.

Meanwhile, Steinberg canceled a Senate confirmation hearing for two corrections department directors appointed by the governor.

"We have additional questions about the administration's ongoing corrections policy," said Steinberg spokesman Mark Hedlund. "It makes sense to wait before we consider those two appointments."


By Patrick McGreevy
patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Times staff writers Anthony York and Paige St. John contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times