Supreme Court Orders Release of California Inmates

Regardless of which party's numbers you choose to accept, the reason behind to the Supreme Court's decision is not so fluid. Overcrowding within the state's prison system has created situations that are in violation of the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. ''Prisoners are crammed into spaces neither designed nor intended to house inmates. As many as 200 prisoners may live in a gymnasium, monitored by two or three correctional officers,'' wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy, who authored the court's decision. He further noted that as many as many as 54 prisoners may be assigned to one toilet. Prisoners are often exposed to abuse from fellow prisoners, which cannot be adequately monitored nor controlled in the current crowded conditions.

In making their decision, justices further considered arguments concerning a lack of medical care and mental health treatment within the prison system. Imprisoning the mentally-ill, without providing treatment, leads to high rates of suicide. According to the National Sheriff's Association, mentally ill individuals are three-times more likely to be placed in prison than to receive treatment within a medical setting. Furthermore, an estimated 20 percent of the state's current prisoners suffer from major mental-health issues.


Overcrowding concerns date back to the 1990's, when it was initially noted that the prison system, which is meant to hold an estimated 80,000 inmates, was actually housing an average of 160,000 inmates. As a result, Coleman v. Brown and Plata v. Brown were filed. According to Coleman v Brown, the prison system failed to provide acceptable mental health services to inmates. Similarly, Plata v. Brown asserted that necessary medical treatment was not available to inmates. As a result of these lawsuits, California was granted up to 12 years to correct these deficiencies. However, the problems persisted and the two cases were combined and presented to a three-judge panel. The panel determined that overcrowding was the cause of the prison system's deficiencies and directed California it reduce its prison population.

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the three-judge panel but not all justices agreed that federal judges have the authority to correct a constitutional breach by releasing convicted state prisoners. Conservative Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts, dissented. ''Today the Court affirms what is perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our Nation's history: an order requiring California to release the staggering number of 46,000 convicted criminals,'' wrote Scalia. ''It takes the federal courts wildly beyond their institutional capacity,'' he further wrote in reference to the court's decision.

Kennedy, who is regarded as the court's swing voter, sided with the liberal bloc and noted that the state was already working to reduce the prison population to 137 percent capacity.