Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/09-1233.ZD1.html
Timestamp: 2017-06-27 14:14:14
Document Index: 553264552

Matched Legal Cases: ['§3626', '§3626', '§3626', '§3626', '§3626', '§3626']

IFORNIA, et al
on appeal from the united states district courts for the eastern district and the northern
The decree in this case is a perfect example of what
the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), 110 Stat.
1321–66, was enacted to prevent.
The Constitution does not give federal judges the authority to run state penal systems. Decisions regarding state prisons have profound public safety and financial implications, and the States are generally free to make these decisions as they choose. See Turner
v. Safley
, 482 U. S. 78, 85 (1987)
The Eighth Amendment imposes an important—but limited—restraint on state authority in this field. The Eighth Amendment prohibits prison officials from de-
priving inmates of “the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities.” Rhodes v.
, 452 U. S. 337, 347 (1981)
. Federal courts have the responsibility to ensure that this constitutional standard is met, but undesirable prison conditions that do not violate the Constitution are beyond the federal courts’ reach.
The approach taken by the three-judge court flies in the face of the PLRA. Contrary to the PLRA, the court’s remedy is not narrowly tailored to address proven and ongoing constitutional violations. And the three-judge court violated the PLRA’s critical command that any court con-
templating a prisoner release order must give “substantial weight to any adverse impact on public safety.” 18 U. S. C. §3626(a)(1)(A). The three-judge court would have us believe that the early release of 46,000 inmates will not imperil—and will actually improve—public safety. Juris. Statement App., O. T. 2009, No. 09–416, pp. 248a–249a (hereinafter Juris. App.). Common sense and experience counsel greater caution.
I would reverse the decision below for three interrelated reasons. First, the three-judge court improperly refused
to consider evidence concerning present conditions in the California prison system. Second, the court erred in holding that no remedy short of a massive prisoner release can bring the California system into compliance with the Eighth Amendment . Third, the court gave inadequate weight to the impact of its decree on public safety.
Both the PLRA and general principles concerning injunctive relief dictate that a prisoner release order cannot properly be issued unless the relief is necessary to remedy an ongoing violation. Under the PLRA, a prisoner release may be decreed only if crowding “
the primary cause” of an Eighth Amendment violation and only if no other re-
lief “
remedy” the violation. §3626(a)(3)(E) (emphasis added). This language makes it clear that proof of past violations alone is insufficient to justify a court-ordered prisoner release.
Similarly, in cases not governed by the PLRA, we have held that an inmate seeking an injunction to prevent a violation of the Eighth Amendment must show that prison officials are “knowingly and unreasonably disregarding an objectively intolerable risk of harm, and that they will continue to do so … into the future.” Farmer
, 511 U. S. 825, 846 (1994)
. The “deliberate indifference” needed to establish an Eighth Amendment violation must be examined “in light of the prison authorities’ current attitudes and conduct,” Helling v.
, 509 U. S. 25, 36 (1993)
, which means “their attitudes and conduct at the time suit is brought and persisting thereafter,” Farmer
For these reasons, the propriety of the relief ordered here cannot be assessed without ascertaining the nature and scope of any ongoing constitutional violations. Proof of past violations will not do; nor is it sufficient simply
to establish that some violations continue. The scope of permissible relief depends on the scope of any continuing violations, and therefore it was essential for the three-judge court to make a reliable determination of the extent of any violations as of the time its release order was issued. Particularly in light of the radical nature of its chosen remedy, nothing less than an up-to-date assessment was tolerable.
The three-judge court, however, relied heavily on outdated information and findings and refused to permit California to introduce new evidence. Despite evidence of improvement,
the three-judge court relied on old findings made by the single-judge courts, see Juris. App. 76a–77a, including a finding made 14 years earlier
at 170a
(citing Coleman
, 912 F. Supp. 1282, 1316, 1319 (ED Cal. 1995)). The three-judge court highlighted death statistics from 2005, see Juris. App. 9a, while ignoring the “significant and continuous decline since 2006,” California Prison Health Care Receivership Corp., K. Imai, Analysis of Year 2008 Death Reviews 31 (Dec. 2009) (hereinafter 2008 Death Reviews). And the court dwelled on conditions at a facility that has since been replaced. See Juris. App. 19a–20a, 24a, 89a–90a, 94a, 107a, 111a.
Prohibiting the State from introducing evidence about conditions as of the date when the prisoner release order was under consideration, id.
, at 76a–78a, and n. 42, the three-judge court explicitly stated that it would not “evaluate the state’s continuing constitutional violations.” Id.
, at 77a. Instead, it based its remedy on constitutional deficiencies that, in its own words, were found “years ago.” Ibid
The three-judge court justified its refusal to receive up-to-date evidence on the ground that the State had not filed a motion to terminate prospective relief under a provision of the PLRA, §3626(b). See Juris. App. 77a. Today’s opinion for this Court endorses that reasoning, ante
, at 26. But the State’s opportunity to file such a motion did not eliminate the three-judge court’s obligation to ensure that its relief was necessary to remedy ongoing violations.
Moreover, the lower court’s reasoning did not properly take into account the potential significance of the evidence that the State sought to introduce. Even if that evidence did not show that all violations had ceased—the showing needed to obtain the termination of relief under §3626(b)—that evidence was highly relevant with respect to the nature and scope of permissible relief.
The majority approves the three-judge court’s refusal to receive fresh evidence based largely on the need for “[o]rderly trial management.” Ante
, at 26. The majority reasons that the three-judge court had closed the book on the question of constitutional violations and had turned to
the question of remedy. Ibid
. As noted, however, the ex-
tent of any continuing constitutional violations was highly relevant to the question of remedy.
The majority also countenances the three-judge court’s reliance on dated findings. The majority notes that the lower court considered recent reports by the Special Master and Receiver, ante
, at 18–19, but the majority provides no persuasive justification for the lower court’s refusal to receive hard, up-to-date evidence about any continuing violations. With the safety of the people of California in the balance, the record on this issue should not have been closed.
The majority repeats the lower court’s error of reciting statistics that are clearly out of date. The Court notes
the lower court’s finding that as of 2005 “an inmate in one of California’s prisons needlessly dies every six to seven days.” See ante
, at 9. Yet by the date of the trial before the three-judge court, the death rate had been trending downward for 10 quarters, App. 2257, and the number of likely preventable deaths fell from 18 in 2006 to 3 in 2007, a decline of 83 percent.
Between 2001 and 2007, the California prison system had the 13th lowest average mortality rate of all 50 state systems.
The majority highlights past instances in which particular prisoners received shockingly deficient medical care. See ante
, at 5, 6–7, 10 (recounting five incidents). But such anecdotal evidence cannot be given undue weight in assessing the current state of the California system. The population of the California prison system (156,000 inmates at the time of trial) is larger than that of many medium-sized cities,
and an examination of the medical care provided to the residents of many such cities would likely reveal cases in which grossly deficient treatment was provided. Instances of past mistreatment in the California system are relevant, but prospective relief must be tailored to present and future, not past, conditions.
These statutory restrictions largely reflect general standards for injunctive relief aimed at remedying constitutional violations by state and local governments. “The power of the federal courts to restructure the operation of local and state governmental entities is not plenary. … Once a constitutional violation is found, a federal court is required to tailor the scope of the remedy to fit the nature and extent of the constitutional violation.” Dayton Bd. of Ed.
v. Brinkman, 433 U. S. 406, 419–420 (1977)
It is instructive to consider the list of deficiencies in the California prison health care system that are highlighted in today’s opinion for this Court and in the opinion of the court below. The deficiencies noted by the majority here include the following: “ ‘[e]xam tables and counter tops, where prisoners with … communicable diseases are treated, [are] not routinely disinfected,’ ” ante
, at 10; medical facilities “ ‘are in an abysmal state of disrepair,’ ” ibid.;
medications “ ‘are too often not available when needed,’ ” ante
, at 10–11; “ ‘[b]asic medical equipment is often not available or used,’ ” ante
, at 10; prisons “would ‘hire any doctor who had “a license, a pulse and a pair of shoes,” ’ ” ibid.;
and medical and mental health staff positions have high vacancy rates, ante,
at 20. The three-judge court pointed to similar problems. See Juris. App. 93a–121a (citing, among other things, staffing vacancies, too few beds for mentally ill prisoners, and an outmoded records management system).
Is it plausible that none of these deficiencies can be remedied without releasing 46,000 prisoners? Without taking that radical and dangerous step, exam tables and counter tops cannot properly be disinfected? None of the system’s dilapidated facilities can be repaired? Needed medications and equipment cannot be purchased and used? Staff vacancies cannot be filled? The qualifica-
tions of prison physicians cannot be improved? A better records management system cannot be developed and implemented?
I do not dispute that general overcrowding contributes to many of the California system’s healthcare problems. But it by no means follows that reducing overcrowding is the only or the best or even a particularly good way to alleviate those problems. Indeed, it is apparent that the prisoner release ordered by the court below is poorly suited for this purpose. The release order is not limited to prisoners needing substantial medical care but instead calls for a reduction in the system’s overall population. Under the order issued by the court below, it is not necessary for
a single prisoner in the plaintiff classes to be released. Although some class members will presumably be among those who are discharged, the decrease in the number of prisoners needing mental health treatment or other forms of extensive medical care will be much smaller than the total number of prisoners released, and thus the release will produce at best only a modest improvement in the burden on the medical care system.
Second, the court failed to distinguish between conditions that fall below the level that may be desirable as a matter of public policy and conditions that do not meet the minimum level mandated by the Constitution. To take one example, the court criticized the California system because prison doctors must conduct intake exams in areas separated by folding screens rather than in separate rooms, creating conditions that “do not allow for appropriate confidentiality.” Id.
, at 88a. But the legitimate privacy expectations of inmates are greatly diminished, see
, 468 U. S. 517, 525–526 (1984)
, and this Court has never suggested that the failure to provide private consultation rooms in prisons amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
Many of the problems noted above plainly could be addressed without releasing prisoners and without in-
curring the costs associated with a large-scale prison construction program. Sanitary procedures could be improved; sufficient supplies of medicine and medical equipment could be purchased; an adequate system of records management could be implemented; and the number of medical and other staff positions could be increased. Similarly, it is hard to believe that staffing vacancies cannot be reduced or eliminated and that the qualifications of medical personnel cannot be improved by any means short of a massive prisoner release. Without specific findings backed by hard evidence, this Court should not accept the counterintuitive proposition that these problems cannot be ameliorated by increasing salaries, improving working conditions, and providing better training and monitoring of performance.
Measures such as these might be combined with targeted reductions in critical components of the State’s prison population. A certain number of prisoners in the classes on whose behalf the two cases were brought might be transferred to out-of-state facilities. The three-judge court rejected the State’s proposal to transfer prisoners to out-of-state facilities in part because the number of proposed transfers was too small. See id.,
at 160a. See also ante
, at 30. But this reasoning rested on the court’s insistence on a reduction in the State’s general prison population rather than the two plaintiff classes.
When the State proposed to make a targeted transfer of prisoners in one of the plaintiff classes (
prisoners needing mental health treatment), one of the District Judges blocked the transfers for fear that the out-of-state facilities would not provide a sufficiently high level of care. See App. 434–440. The District Judge even refused to allow out-of-state transfers for prisoners who volunteered for relocation. See id.
, at 437. And the court did this even though there was not even an allegation, let alone clear evidence, that the States to which these prisoners would have been sent were violating the Eighth Amendment .
The District Judge presumed that the receiving States might fail to provide constitutionally adequate care, but “ ‘in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, courts presume that [public officers] have properly discharged their official duties.’ ” United States
, 517 U. S. 456, 464 (1996)
v. Chemical Foundation, Inc.
, 272 U. S. 1, 14–15 (1926)
); Postal Service
, 534 U. S. 1, 10 (2001)
(“[A] presumption of regularity attaches to the actions of Government agencies”); see also McKune
, 536 U. S. 24, 51 (2002)
(O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment) (“[W]e may assume that the prison is capable of controlling its inmates so that respondent’s personal safety is not jeopardized … , at least in the absence of proof to the contrary”).
“The only thing is we would be protecting the class members. And maybe that’s the appropriate thing to do. I mean, that’s what this case is about, but it would be … difficult for me to say yes, and the hell with everybody else.” Id.,
at 2915:23–2916:2.
In taking this view, Congress was well aware of the impact of previous prisoner release orders. The prisoner release program carried out a few years earlier in Philadelphia is illustrative. In the early 1990’s, federal courts enforced a cap on the number of inmates in the Philadelphia prison system, and thousands of inmates were set free. Although efforts were made to release only those prisoners who were least likely to commit violent crimes, that attempt was spectacularly unsuccessful. During an 18-month period, the Philadelphia police rearrested thousands of these prisoners for committing 9,732 new crimes. Those defendants were charged with 79 murders, 90 rapes, 1,113 assaults, 959 robberies, 701 burglaries, and 2,748 thefts, not to mention thousands of drug offenses.
Members of Congress were well aware of this experience.
Despite the record of past prisoner release orders, the three-judge court in this case concluded that loosing 46,000 criminals would not produce a tally like that in Philadelphia and would actually improve public safety. Juris. App. 248a–249a. In reaching this debatable con-
clusion, the three-judge court relied on the testimony of selected experts, id
., at 248a, and the majority now defers to what it characterizes as the lower court’s findings of fact on this controversial public policy issue, ante
, at 15, 19–20, 24.
This is a fundamental and dangerous error. When a trial court selects between the competing views of experts on broad empirical questions such as the efficacy of
preventing crime through the incapacitation of convicted criminals, the trial court’s choice is very different from a classic finding of fact and is not entitled to the same degree of deference on appeal.
The particular three-judge court convened in this case was “confident” that releasing 46,000 prisoners pursuant to its plan “would in fact benefit public safety.” Juris. App. 248a–249a. According to that court, “overwhelming evidence” supported this purported finding. Id., at 232a. But a more cautious court, less bent on implementing its own criminal justice agenda, would have at least acknowledged that the consequences of this massive prisoner release cannot be ascertained in advance with any degree of certainty and that it is entirely possible that this release will produce results similar to those under prior court-ordered population caps. After all, the sharp increase in the California prison population that the three-judge court lamented, see id.,
at 254a, has been accompanied by an equally sharp decrease in violent crime.
These California trends mirror similar developments at the national level,
and “[t]here is a general consensus that the decline in crime is, at least in part, due to more and longer prison sentences.”
If increased incarceration in California has led to decreased crime, it is entirely possible that a decrease in imprisonment will have the opposite effect.
Commenting on the testimony of an expert who stated that he could not be certain about the effect of the massive prisoner discharge on public safety, the three-judge court complained that “[s]uch equivocal testimony is not helpful.” Id.,
at 247a. But testimony pointing out the difficulty of assessing the consequences of this drastic remedy would have been valued by a careful court duly mindful of the overriding need to guard public safety.
The three-judge court acknowledged that it “ha[d] not evaluated the public safety impact of each individual element” of the population reduction plan it ordered the State to implement. App. to Juris. Statement 3a. The majority argues that the three-judge court nevertheless gave substantial weight to public safety because its order left “details of implementation to the State’s discretion.” Ante
, at 41. Yet the State had told the three-judge court that, after studying possible population reduction measures, it concluded that “reducing the prison population to 137.5% within a two-year period cannot be accomplished without unacceptably compromising public safety.” Juris. App. 317a. The State found that public safety required a 5-year period in which to achieve the ordered reduction. Ibid
The members of the three-judge court and the experts on whom they relied may disagree with key elements of the crime-reduction program that the State of California has pursued for the past few decades, including “the shift to inflexible determinate sentencing and the passage of harsh mandatory minimum and three-strikes laws.” Id.,
at 254a. And experts such as the Receiver are entitled to take the view that the State should “re-thin[k] the place of incarceration in its criminal justice system,” App. 489. But those controversial opinions on matters of criminal justice policy should not be permitted to override the reasonable policy view that is implicit in the PLRA—that prisoner release orders present an inherent risk to the safety of the public.
I fear that today’s decision, like prior prisoner release orders, will lead to a grim roster of victims. I hope that
In a few years, we will see. Notes
Before requesting the appointment of a three-judge court, the District Court in Coleman recognized “commendable progress” in the State’s effort to provide adequate mental health care, Juris. App. 294a, and the District Court in Plata acknowledged that “the Receiver has made much progress since his appointment,” id., at 280a. The report of the Special Master to which the Court refers, ante, at 18–19, identifies a “generally positive trend.” App. 803. 2
Because the Ninth Circuit places the burden on the State to prove the absence of an ongoing violation when it moves to terminate prospective relief, see Gilmore v. California, 220 F. 3d 987, 1007 (CA9 2000), even if the State had unsuccessfully moved to terminate pro-spective relief under 18 U. S. C. §3626(b), there would still have been nodetermination that plaintiffs had carried their burden under the PLRA to establish by clear and convincing evidence that a prisoner release order is necessary to correct an ongoing rights violation.
It is also no answer to say, as the Court now does, ante, at 26, that the State had the opportunity to resist the convening of the three-judge court on the ground that there were no unremedied constitutional violations as of that date. See §3626(a)(3)(A)(i). The District Courts granted plaintiffs’ motions to convene a three-judge court in 2007, three years before the remedial decree here was issued. Thus, the conditions in the prison system as of the date when the decree was issued were not necessarily the same as those that existed before the three-judge court proceedings began. Moreover, as noted above, even if all of the violations in the system had not been cured at the time of the remedial decree, an accurate assessment of conditions as of that date was essential in order to ensure that the relief did not sweep more broadly than necessary. 5
For example, the population of the California prison system ex-ceeds that of Syracuse, New York; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Springfield, Massachusetts; Eugene, Oregon; and Savannah, Georgia.
Condemning the inappropriate imposition of prison population caps, Senator Sarbanes cited “the case of Philadelphia, where a court-ordered prison cap has put thousands of violent criminals back onthe city’s streets, often with disastrous consequences.” 141 Cong. Rec. 26549 (1995). Senator Abraham complained that “American citizens are put at risk every day by court decrees … that cure prison crowding by declaring that we must free dangerous criminals before they have served their time.” Id., at 26448. “The most egregious example,” he added, “is the city of Philadelphia.” Ibid.