AP — California may speed up the release of some inmates while allowing other inmates with a violent history to become firefighters, under a proposal to cut crowding in state prisons Gov. Jerry Brown filed late Thursday night.
Brown filed the plan "under protest," said Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard. Brown warned that the options he presented to the court would undermine public safety, and Beard reiterated that the state plans to appeal in an attempt to avoid going through with the measures.
The governor's plan calls for increasing early release credits for inmates and paroling elderly and incapacitated prisoners, while slowing the return of thousands of inmates who are being held in private prisons in other states.
Federal courts required the state to outline by midnight Thursday how it intends to meet a court-ordered population cap by the end of the year. A panel of federal judges threatened last month to hold the Democratic governor personally accountable if they decide he is not complying with their long-standing order, which already has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The state already is sentencing thousands of lower-level offenders to county jails instead of prison. But the judges ruled that it must reduce its prison population by an additional 9,300 inmates to improve medical and mental health care for inmates.
The state's plan includes: continue reading...
3 comments:
That's good in all the "panel of federal judges" want to hold Gov. Brown its funny how his name is always posted but the "panel of federal judges" now who are these guys whats their names??? They want to hold Gov. Brown accountable ok but what happens if Brown starts releasing and the counties experience a huge spike in crime and murders which it's started. But who is held accountable for the ordering of such a large group of inmate population being released. The people of California have spoken the Gov. has spoken this huge release is a huge public safety issue. So can we the people get the names of this "panel of federal judges" so we can hold them accountable for their stupidity. I'm just a concerned citizen of California. This state is falling apart!
U.S. District Judges Lawrence Karlton in Sacramento and Thelton Henderson in San Francisco separately ruled that the prisoners were suffering from unconstitutional ill treatment, and they handed down at least 80 orders requiring state prisons to make improvements. Despite promises from prison authorities, the state did not comply with most of the orders.
Frustrated, the judges called for convening a three-judge panel under the terms of a federal law that authorizes prison releases as a last resort. The chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals appointed Judge Stephen Reinhardt from that court to sit on the panel with Karlton and Henderson.
http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/News/docs/2011-05-23-Three-Judge-Panel-Background.pdf
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