Dec. 6th
On November 30th, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument on whether to susutain a three-judge California federal district court panel that found the California prison system overcrowding violates inmates right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. That court panel ruled in January that overcrowding in the state’s prison system is the main cause of substandard medical and mental health care which violated the Constitutional guarantee.
It would appear that the entire criminal justice sysytem, as well as, defendants and inmates rights’ organizations are heavily focused on this issue. If California were forced to release up to 40,000 inmates (as has been orderred), there could be massive inmate releases in California and across the nation.
The court appeared to be split along historic political lines with more liberal justices lining up with the appellate panel and more conservative justices in opposition. What appears to be clear from oral argument is the real concern of most justices at the appalling degree of misery that overcrowding is causing. Even the more conservative justices seemed to acknowledge that much. As in many cases, the decison may fall to Justice Anthony Kennedy who is often the swing vote on the Court. He said the three-judge panel had made a “perfectly reasonable decision” that prisons jammed to nearly twice their designed capacity could not meet constitutional standards for medical care. But he also expressed concern with the rapid timeline and the number of prisoners to be released. It appears that this will be a close decision, and one that will have tremendous ramifications for states across the nation
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Importantly for Reentry Court programs and other community-based alternatives to prison, if the lower court panel is upheld, there will be an immediate need to deal with an influx of parolees and to expand the resources to deal with those returnees. More to the point,we need to begin preparations now to deal with an influx of parolees to be released in the coming years , no matter what the Supreme Court decides.
For more info: SFGate
