As reported by Denny Walsh in yesterday's SACBEE, the special three judge federal court in the Plata-Coleman prison overcrowding mega case rejected the state's arguments that an inmate cut of less than half of what the court had asked for was good enough given legislative resistance and public safety concerns.
The claim of public safety is particularly outrageous given how much of the courts massive August 4th ruling was devoted to examining public safety and how population reduction could be done without prejudice to it. The court significantly cut down the number in order to allow an extra measure of reassurance.
When I find the new ruling I'll post it here. Here is the plaintiff's motion for contempt filed a couple of weeks ago.
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Jonathan: More on the order, including a link to the original text, here: http://californiacorrectionscrisis.blogspot.com/2009/10/platacoleman-panel-we-were-not-fooled.html
Public Safety? Is that what they say? Yes I do agree that some prisoners should serve their time without early release. (repeat offenders, child molesters, and cold blooded murderers).
On the other hand I have to argue that some prisoners should be given a second chance or time reduction. I would have to say that these "offenders" know they made a bad decision and have learned from it by having to be in the CA state prison system and realizing that that is not what they need or want. It is not rehabilitating.
One idea I can think of to besides early release for some, is to start with proper representation for defendents. I have seen that our public defenders either dont have the time to spend on a case or they maybe just dont care to spend the time on it. Each person they defend should be looked at individually as a person.
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