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Plata and Coleman Showdown in California

By John E. Dannenberg

A three-judge federal court tightened the noose around the neck of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in April 2013 when it issued a lengthy order denying a motion by state officials to delay or modify the court’s prison population reduction order that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in May 2011. See: Brown v. Plata, 131 S.Ct. 1910 (2011) [PLN, July 2011, p.1]. The court also denied the CDCR’s request to end the federal receivership over the state’s prison mental health care. The sockdolager came when the court threatened the CDCR and California Governor Jerry Brown with contempt if they did not follow the court’s directives after decades of litigation.

On April 5, 2013, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence K. Karlton issued a 68-page order in Coleman v. Brown, U.S.D.C. (E.D. Cal.), Case No. CIV S 90-520 LKK/JFM (PC) – the 23-year-old case that resulted in a special master being appointed by the court to oversee mental health care in CDCR facilities – denying the defendants’ motion to “terminate all relief in this action, vacate the Court’s judgment and orders and dismiss the case.”

Judge Karlton first noted that the state is currently under an order to reduce its prison population to 137.5% of design capacity by the end of 2013. He said he could not entertain a motion to terminate the relief ordered by the three-judge court or to vacate the population reduction order. Nor could he modify the prison population reduction order, as the defendants asked, because the state had not reached the required population cap. Judge Karlton therefore turned to the defendants’ motion to terminate mental health care oversight.

Despite adding more treatment facilities and staff, the court noted that the CDCR was still deficient in providing care for some 32,000 mentally ill prisoners. Against the state’s protestation that it had spent more than $1 billion on new facilities and devoted $400 million a year to treatment for mentally ill prisoners, court-appointed experts reported that the CDCR continues to have major problems – including a suicide rate that worsened in 2012 to 24 per 100,000 population, far exceeding the national state prison average of 16 suicides per 100,000 population. [See: PLN, April 2013, p.22].

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