Dear Arnold & Jerry: Forget the Appeal, Make a Deal

Yesterday, both the NY Times and the Sacramento Bee had editorials that turned a harsh light on California’s inexcusable bungling of its incarceration policy, which has resulted in Monday’s tentative ruling by a trio of federal judges who have demanded that the state’s prison population be drastically reduced.

Then just as I was getting ready to chide the LA Times for not putting out their own editorial on the issue, I saw they did so this morning. It is scathing—-and excellent. Kudos to the Times editorial board. This is a matter worthy of many, many angry words—and theirs are angry, informed and elegant.

First a clip from the NY Times that points to how and why all this awful mess has occurred in the first place:

In San Francisco last week, a federal court was hearing final arguments in the prison overcrowding lawsuit that led Monday to an unprecedented decision to reduce the nation’s largest prison system by one-third. Just a few blocks away, a state appellate court was affirming a life sentence for Ali Foroutan, convicted of possession of 0.03 gram of methamphetamine.

Critics of California’s justice system say Mr. Foroutan’s sentence under the “three-strikes law,” which mandates 25 years to life in prison for three-time felons, is the kind of punishment that has made the state’s prisons the most overcrowded in the nation.

Federal judges tentatively ruled Monday that packed facilities were the chief impediment to adequate health care in prisons — a system so flawed it was tantamount to a violation of the Eighth Amendment.

[SNIP]

The case is significant because of the scale of the proposed prisoner reduction, and also because it shines a harsh light on the failures of state government to address the problem for years.

Decades of tough-on-crime laws coupled with a failure to finance prison programs have left prisoners stacked three bunks high in prison gymnasiums and hallways throughout the state. With few probation and parole programs available, about two-thirds of all ex-convicts return to prison within three years.

Here’s a clip from the Sac Bee regarding what Gov Arnold and AG Jerry ought to do about it:

The wholly predictable outcome to California’s refusal to address prison overcrowding has occurred.

A panel of three federal judges has tentatively ruled that the only remaining course to fix unconstitutional prison conditions is to reduce or limit the prison population.

California has reached this juncture because its political branches – the governor and Legislature – have utterly failed to come up with a solution.

This abdication of duty has thrown the responsibility for action onto the court system.

With their tentative ruling, the judges have given Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators another chance to act. But don’t hold your breath. The first words from the Schwarzenegger administration were that the state would appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court if the judges make their ruling final.

Rather than resorting to legal back flips, gyrations and contortions, Schwarzenegger and legislators should get down to real negotiations toward a settlement.

Schwarzenegger, you’ll recall, declared a state of emergency in 2006 because of “severe overcrowding” in the prisons, which he said caused “substantial risk to the health and safety of the men and women who work inside these prisons and the inmates housed in them.”

Finally the LA Times wraps it up and puts it away:

Now that a panel of three federal judges is calling for California to cut its prison population by as much as a third, effectively ruling that our dysfunctional state government is incapable of overseeing the prison system, it makes us wonder what other legislative duties could be delegated to the judiciary. Redistricting? Schools? The budget process? It wouldn’t exactly be democratic, but it would beat the anarchy in Sacramento.

The judicial order on prisons isn’t final and can be appealed, but it’s an unmistakable statement about how spectacularly our lawmakers have failed. California’s prison conditions are so bad, and the standard of medical care that inmates receive is so poor, that the state is violating protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. In other words, you don’t have to go to Guantanamo Bay to find abuses of human rights and American law — just go to Lompoc.

Now the ball is in your court, dearest Mr. Schwarzenegger and Mr. Brown. If you don’t do the right thing, the judges will. And we who care deeply about the health of this state and its inhabitants—even those who are in prison—will back the judges against you.