WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday narrowly endorsed reducing California's cramped prison population by more than 30,000 inmates to fix sometimes deadly problems in medical care, ruling that federal judges retain enormous power to oversee troubled state prisons.
The court said in a 5-4 decision that the reduction
is "required by the Constitution" to correct longstanding violations
of inmates' rights to adequate care for their mental and physical health. In
2009, the state's prisons averaged nearly a death a week that might have been
prevented or delayed with better medical care.
The order mandates a prison population of no more
than 110,000 inmates, still far above the 80,000 the system was designed to
hold.
There were more than 143,000 inmates in
California's 33 adult prisons as of May 11, so roughly 33,000 inmates will need
to be transferred to other jurisdictions or released.
"The violations have persisted for years. They
remain uncorrected," Justice Anthony Kennedy, a California native, wrote
for the court. The lawsuit challenging the adequacy of mental health care was
filed in 1990.
To emphasize the conditions, Kennedy took the
unusual step of including photos of overcrowding, including cages where
mentally ill inmates were held while they awaited a bed.
The court's four Democratic appointees joined with
Kennedy in upholding a court order issued by three federal judges in
California, all appointees of President Jimmy Carter.
Justice Antonin Scalia said in dissent that the
court order is "perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in
our nation's history" and that it did not comply with the Prison
Litigation Reform Act, a 15-year-old law intended to limit the discretion of
judges in lawsuits over prison conditions.
Scalia, reading his dissent aloud Monday, said it
would require the release of "the staggering number of 46,000 convicted felons."
Scalia's number, cited in legal filings, comes from
a period in which the prison population was even higher.
Justice Clarence Thomas joined Scalia's opinion,
while Justice Samuel Alito wrote a separate dissent for himself and Chief
Justice John Roberts.
Michael Bien, one of the lawyers representing
inmates in the case, said, "The Supreme Court upheld an extraordinary
remedy because conditions were so terrible."
The ruling comes amid efforts in many states,
accelerated by budget gaps, to send fewer people to prison in the first place.
Proposals vary by state, but include ways to reduce sentences for lower-level
offenders, direct some offenders to alternative sentencing programs and give
judges more discretion in sentencing.
"There's a growing consensus that there are
better ways to run criminal justice systems," said Michael Mushlin, an
expert on prisoners' rights at Pace Law School in White Plains, N.Y.
California did not immediately comment on the
ruling.
Eighteen other states joined California in urging
the justices to reject the population order as overreaching. They argued that
it poses a threat to public safety. State attorneys general said they could
face similar legal challenges.
Alito said he, too, feared that the decision,
"like prior prisoner release orders, will lead to a grim roster of
victims. I hope that I am wrong. In a few years, we will see."
Kennedy acknowledged the concern, but said the
judges gave state officials flexibility in complying with the court order,
including offering "early release only to those prisoners who pose the
least risk of reoffending."
The California dispute is the first high court case
that reviewed a prisoner release order under the 1996 federal law, which also
made it much harder for inmates to challenge prison conditions.
The state has protested a court order to cut the
population to around 110,000 inmates within two years, but also has taken steps
to meet, if not exceed, that target. Kennedy said the state also could ask the
lower court for more time to reach the goal.
Earlier this year, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill
that would reduce the prison population by about 40,000 inmates by transferring
many low-level offenders to county jurisdiction. The state legislature has yet
to authorize any money for the transfer.
A person appointed by federal judges now oversees
prison medical operations, but the judges have said the key to improving health
care is to reduce the number of inmates.
At the peak of the overcrowding, nearly 20,000
inmates were living in makeshift housing in gymnasiums and other common areas,
often sleeping in bunks stacked three high. Another 10,000 inmates were in
firefighting camps or private lockups within California.
In 2006, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used his
emergency powers to begin shipping inmates to private prisons in Arizona,
Mississippi and Oklahoma. More than 10,000 California inmates are now housed in
private prisons out of state.
Schwarzenegger also sought to reduce the inmate
population by signing legislation that increased early release credits and made
it more difficult to send ex-convicts back to prison for parole violations.
Another law rewards county probation departments for keeping criminals out of
state prisons.
One result of those changes is that the state has
been able to do away with nearly two-thirds of its makeshift beds, although
more than 7,000 inmates remain in temporary housing.
Associated Press writer Don Thompson in Sacramento,
Calif., contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
