Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-1233.pdf
Page Number: 7

Cite as:  563 U. S. ____ (2011) 

1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary  print  of  the  United  States  Reports.  Readers  are  requested  to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington,  D. C.  20543,  of  any  typographical  or  other  formal  errors,  in  order
that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

_________________ 

No. 09–1233 
_________________ 

EDMUND G. BROWN, JR., GOVERNOR OF CAL- 

IFORNIA, ET AL., APPELLANTS v. MARCIANO 

PLATA ET AL. 

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTS 

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT AND THE NORTHERN

DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

[May 23, 2011] 

JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court. 
This case arises from serious constitutional violations in 
California’s  prison  system.  The  violations  have  persisted 
for years.  They remain uncorrected.  The appeal comes to 
this  Court  from  a  three-judge  District  Court  order  direct-
ing  California  to  remedy  two  ongoing  violations  of  the 
Cruel  and  Unusual  Punishments  Clause,  a  guarantee
binding  on  the  States  by  the  Due  Process  Clause  of  the
Fourteenth Amendment.  The violations are the subject of
two class actions in two Federal District Courts.  The first 
involves  the  class  of  prisoners  with  serious  mental  disor-
ders.  That case is Coleman v. Brown.  The second involves 
prisoners  with  serious  medical  conditions.  That  case  is 
Plata  v.  Brown.  The  order  of  the  three-judge  District 
Court is applicable to both cases.

After  years  of  litigation,  it  became  apparent  that  a 
remedy  for  the  constitutional  violations  would  not  be  ef-
fective  absent  a  reduction  in  the  prison  system  popula-
tion.  The  authority  to  order  release  of  prisoners  as  a
remedy to cure a systemic violation of the Eighth Amend-