FUCK YOU, SACRAMENTO! EAT SHIT!

[Jenne]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g66ATy0-KQp3GtE_L9adr4_0JaZQD9AERLTG0

Calif. seeks stay of inmate-release court order
By DON THOMPSON (AP) – 4 hours ago

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Schwarzenegger administration on Tuesday asked the federal courts to delay an order requiring California to reduce its inmate population over the next two years.

Last month, a special three-judge panel gave California 45 days to decide how it will cut the number of inmates in its 33 adult prisons by more than 40,000, bringing the population to about 110,000. They found that reducing the number of inmates in California's 33 adult prisons was the only way to improve medical and mental health care, which the courts previously ruled was so poor it violated inmates' civil rights.

The administration maintains that the courts cannot order the state to release prisoners and plans to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the administration wants the three-judge panel to stay its decision ordering the prisoner release. That motion was filed Tuesday with federal courts in Sacramento and San Francisco.

If the three California-based federal judges will not delay their order, Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said the administration will seek a stay from the nation's high court.

"We believe that the state is capable of reducing the prison population without the court intervening," he said.

The administration is backing legislation that would cut the number of inmates in the state's prisons by about 37,000 over two years by diverting more convicts to county jails or home detention. How much of that plan will survive the legislative process is unclear.

THEY BEST NOT SEND HIM BACK TO A COUNTY JAIL.  This better mean he'll be out with an ankle bracelent.

FUCK YOU, SACRAMENTO.  Place makes me want to send them a jar of homemade shit.

[Jenne]

Court, governor dig in heels on prison crowding
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, October 22, 2009

A federal court panel responded sternly Wednesday to the state's defiance of its order to reduce overcrowding in California's prisons within two years, telling Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to submit a plan within 21 days that meets the panel's goal of lowering the inmate population by 40,000 or face a court-imposed plan.

The three-judge panel stopped short of holding Schwarzenegger in contempt of court, as requested by lawyers for prisoners who sued over their health care and mental health treatment. But the panel said it was "unaware of any excuse for the state's failure to comply" and would view any further noncompliance "with the utmost seriousness."

Schwarzenegger was unbending.

"We continue to object to the panel's arbitrary cap under a two-year timeline and are continuing our appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court," said Rachel Arrezola, a spokeswoman for the governor. The state's appeal argues that federal courts have no authority to order a reduction in the prison population.

The panel ruled in August that overcrowding in the state's 33 prisons - now filled to nearly twice their designed capacity of 80,000 - was the main reason that health care for inmates violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. A judge appointed a receiver to manage the health system in 2006 after finding that substandard care was killing one inmate per week.

The court gave Schwarzenegger until Sept. 18 to present a plan that would reduce the population from 150,000 to 110,000 over two years, saying it could be done safely by such measures as sending low-risk inmates to county custody and treatment, and halting imprisonment for minor parole violations.

The governor had already proposed measures he said would lower the inmate population by 37,000 in two years. But after the state Assembly spurned all proposals to release inmates early, Schwarzenegger presented a plan to the court that would remove fewer than 20,000 prisoners in two years, and would take five years - and passage of previously rejected legislation - to come close to the court's population goal.

The plan includes extending a current program to transfer some inmates to other states, releasing some sick and elderly inmates to home detention, reclassifying some felony theft crimes as misdemeanors and increasing prison construction.

The court rejected the plan Wednesday and said it was running out of patience.

State officials have had ample time to propose changes that would bring the prisons up to constitutional standards, the panel said, and if they again fail to comply, the court "will be left with no alternative but to develop a plan independently and order it implemented forthwith."

The panel members are U.S. District Judges Thelton Henderson of San Francisco and Lawrence Karlton of Sacramento and Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.



E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/22/MNF51A927O.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 11 of the San Francisco Chronicle

[Requia ☣]

You know, I bet if they *had* hekld him in contempt and he had to spend a couple weeks in one of those hellholes it would do a lot of good.

Should be mandatory for any new official or judge.

[Jenne]

, Req.  And yeah, maybe I should suggest as such to the 3-judge panel...