CA Court won't dissolve panel that could limit state prison population

[Joanne98]

Source: SF Chronical

A federal appeals court today rejected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempt to stop a three-judge panel from considering a cap on the number of inmates in California's overcrowded prison system.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Schwarzenegger's challenge to orders issued by two federal judges July 23 establishing the panel. There are about 172,000 inmates in 33 state prisons that were designed to hold 100,000.

U.S. District Judges Thelton Henderson of San Francisco and Lawrence Karlton of Sacramento have ruled that the state is providing woefully inadequate health care and mental health services to prisoners. Henderson has also appointed an overseer to bring prison health care up to constitutional standards.

If the new panel - Henderson, Karlton and Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the appeals court - finds that overcrowding makes improvements impossible, it could impose a lid that would require the state to release prisoners. Federal law bars a single judge from limiting a state's prison population but allows a three-judge panel to do so.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/11/BA9DS3LFE.DTL

---

The police state hits a speed bump.

[pinto]

1. Good move, 9th Circuit Court.

Kudos.