Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_01-cv-01351/USCOURTS-cand-3_01-cv-01351-332/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Prisoner Civil Rights

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTS

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

AND THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT COMPOSED OF THREE JUDGES

PURSUANT TO SECTION 2284, TITLE 28 UNITED STATES CODE

RALPH COLEMAN, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

EDMUND G. BROWN JR., et al.,

Defendants.

NO. 2:90-cv-0520 LKK DAD (PC)

THREE-JUDGE COURT

MARCIANO PLATA, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

EDMUND G. BROWN JR., et al.,

Defendants.

NO. C01-1351 TEH

THREE-JUDGE COURT

OPINION RE: ORDER GRANTING

IN PART AND DENYING IN PART

DEFENDANTS’ REQUEST FOR

EXTENSION OF DECEMBER 31,

2013 DEADLINE

In August 2009, this Court ordered defendants to reduce the California prison

population to 137.5% design capacity in order to remedy the unconstitutional condition of

mental and medical health care in California prisons. Today, the prison population remains

above 144% design capacity. Yet, it is at least as important now as it was then for the prison

population to be reduced to the limit ordered by this Court. In fact, it is even more important

now for defendants to take effective action that will provide a long-term solution to prison

overcrowding, as, without further action, the prison population is projected to continue to

increase and health conditions are likely to continue to worsen. 

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Since 2009, more and more states have come to recognize that, properly handled, the

release of prisoners held past the time necessary to serve the purposes of their incarceration

will not result in danger to the community, but rather may actually benefit both the prisoners

and their communities. Despite this fact, defendants have consistently refused to take

measures to reduce the California prison population. In the four and a half years between our

2009 order and the date of this opinion, defendants have instituted only one significant

measure to relieve overcrowding in California prisons: “Realignment,” a program that shifted

responsibility for criminals who commit non-serious, non-violent, and non-registerable sex

crimes from the state prison system to county jails. Apart from Realignment, defendants

have taken no significant steps toward reducing the prison population and relieving

overcrowding despite repeated orders by this Court requiring them to do so. Instead,

defendants have continually failed to implement any of the measures approved by this Court

and the Supreme Court that would have safely reduced the California prison population and

alleviated the unconstitutional conditions of medical and mental health care in the prisons.

Defendants now request an extension of time within which to comply fully with the

population reduction order. We are presented with two options. Plaintiffs have proposed

that we deny defendants’ request for an extension and order defendants to comply

immediately. Pursuant, however, to a recently enacted statute, Senate Bill 105 (“SB 105”),

defendants have informed this Court that, if instructed to comply immediately, they will do

so by sending thousands of California prisoners to out-of-state facilities. This solution is

neither durable nor desirable. It would result in thousands of prisoners being incarcerated

hundreds or thousands of miles from the support of their families, and in hundreds of

millions of dollars that could be spent on long-lasting prison reform being spent instead on

temporarily housing prisoners in out-of-state facilities. Moreover, we have consistently

demanded a “durable” solution to California prison overcrowding, and plaintiffs’ proposal

does not help to achieve that solution. See Apr. 11, 2013 Opinion & Order at 69 (“It is [the]

long-term obligation that defendants must bear in mind in achieving a ‘durable remedy’ to

the problem of prison crowding.”); June 20, 2013 Opinion & Order at 45 (“What is necessary

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is a ‘durable’ solution to the problem of overcrowding if the underlying problem of the

deprivation of prisoners’ constitutional rights is to be resolved.”); Sept. 24, 2013 Order to

Meet and Confer (ordering the parties to explore “how this Court can ensure a durable

solution to the prison crowding problem”). 

In contrast, belated as it may be, defendants appear to be prepared to take the

necessary steps toward achieving a durable solution, without additional costly and wasteful

litigation and delay. They have proposed an order whereby they will be granted a two-year

extension in which they will comply fully with the population reduction order of June 30,

2011, and the population will be reduced in three stages, or “benchmarks” – first in June of

this year, second in February 2015, and third and finally in February 2016. For the first time

under this order, there will be an effective mechanism which will ensure that these

benchmarks are met: a “Compliance Officer” who will have the authority to release prisoners

should defendants fail to reach one of the benchmarks, with the number of prisoners released

being the number necessary to bring defendants into compliance with the missed benchmark.

 Further, during these two years, defendants have agreed to develop comprehensive and

sustainable prison population-reduction reforms, including considering the establishment of a

commission to recommend reforms of state penal and sentencing laws. They have also

agreed to immediately implement various population reduction measures, such as increasing

good time credits prospectively for non-violent second-strike offenders and minimum

custody inmates, implementing a new parole determination process by which second-striker

offenders will be eligible for parole after serving only 50% of their sentence, and expanding

parole for the elderly and medically infirm. In addition, as provided by SB 105, the two-year

extension will allow for hundreds of millions of dollars to be allocated to a “Recidivism

Reduction Fund” for activities designed to reduce the state’s prison population, including but

not limited to, reducing recidivism. Finally, defendants have represented to this Court that, if

a two year extension is granted, they will not appeal or support an appeal of the order

granting the extension, or of any of its provisions; nor will they appeal or support the appeal

of any subsequent order necessary to implement the extension order or any of its provisions,

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nor any order issued by the Compliance Officer pursuant to the authority vested in him by

the extension order; nor will they move or support a motion to terminate any relief provided

for or extended by the extension order or any of its provisions until at least two years after

the date of the extension order and such time as it is firmly established that compliance with

the 137.5% design capacity benchmark is durable. This should bring to an end defendants’

continual appeals and requests for modification of this Court’s orders. 

Thus, while we are reluctant to extend the deadline for two more years, we also

acknowledge that defendants have agreed that, with such an extension, they will implement

measures that should result in a durable solution to prison overcrowding in California. We

recognize that these measures should have been adopted much earlier, that plaintiffs’

lawyers have made unceasing efforts to obtain immediate relief on behalf of their clients,

and that California prisoners deserve far better treatment than they have received from

defendants over the past four and a half years. Similarly, California’s citizens have incurred

far greater costs, both financial and otherwise, as a result of defendants’ heretofore

unyielding resistance to compliance with this Court’s orders. Finally, we recognize that this

Court must also accept part of the blame for not acting more forcefully with regard to

defendants’ obduracy in the face of its continuing constitutional violations. Nevertheless,

resolving the conditions in California prisons for the long run, and not merely for the next

few months, is of paramount importance to this Court as well as to the people of this State. 

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For this reason, we grant defendants a two-year extension of time within which to comply

with the population reduction order under the terms and conditions stated in the order filed

simultaneously with this opinion. 

Dated: 02/10/14 

STEPHEN REINHARDT

UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE

NINTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS

Dated: 02/10/14 

LAWRENCE K. KARLTON

SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

Dated: 02/10/14 

THELTON E. HENDERSON

SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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