California Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate announced late Thursday that the state has a plan to reduce the prison population that will satisfy a judicial panel of judges, but the three federal judges have to be willing to issue orders the state sees as illegal.
The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation can reach the population goal the judges are seeking only with changes in state laws or federal court orders waiving laws now on the books, Cate said at an evening press briefing.
The Legislature already has turned thumbs down on some of the changes, such as increasing the monetary threshold for grand theft, offering alternative custody options for low-level offenders, and limiting sentencing options to county jail for certain offenses.
In an order last month rejecting a plan submitted in September by the administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the three-judge panel directed administration officials, including Cate, to submit a plan identifying “those waivers of state law that would be required to implement their proposals to reduce the prison population,” even if they believed such action was not permissible.
Cate said the plan filed Thursday cites a “panoply of state laws that would have to be waived, but we don’t believe the (federal) Prison Litigation Reform Act allows it, and we will present our case on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
The judicial panel, for example, would have to order his department not to accept individuals who fit a specified profile, such as those with no strikes under the “three-strikes”law who are convicted of simple drug possession or any one of a number of theft-related crimes, Cate said.
Another example, the secretary said, would be an order not to accept any person convicted of felony theft that did not meet a $950 threshold. Grand theft is punishable as a felony when the amount stolen exceeds $400. The administration failed in its bid for legislation that would increase the amount to $950.
“The court could direct us to use GPS bracelets instead of three-month prison stays in order to reduce the number of parole violators cycling through the system,” Cate said.
The court could waive the July 1, 2011, expiration of Schwarzenegger’s 2006 emergency proclamation allowing the transfer of inmates to out-of-state prisons without their consent. It also could order increased use of private in-state prisons.
Cate cited the California Environmental Quality Act as another law that could be waived by the judicial panel to eliminate a lengthy review process for each component of the department’s new-construction program. “We don’t believe the court can do any of these things under the PLRA, but we would obey federal court orders,” Cate said. “We believe the plan we submitted earlier that moves more slowly and relies primarily on new construction and evidence-based reform is the way to go.”
The judicial panel, formed under provisions of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, ruled in August that substandard health care received by inmates in California’s 33 adult prisons violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and that overcrowding is the primary reason.
