US Supreme Court Orders California to Reduce Prison Population for Failure to Provide Constitutionally Adequate Treatment for Inmates with Serious Mental Illness

 

Brown, Governor of California, et al. v. Plata, et al., No. 09-1233, decided May 23, 2011
Slip opinion found at: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-1233.pdf

In a 5-4 decision written by Justice Kennedy, the United States Supreme Court upheld the decision of a three-judge panel entered under the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (“PLRA”) ordering California to reduce its prison population by 137.5% of its original design capacity, or by 46,000 prisoners, within two years in order to address severe and unconstitutional conditions related to the delivery of mental health and medical care to California’s 156,000 inmates.

This decision is the result of two consolidated federal class action suits challenging the mental health and medical conditions in California’s prisons. The first, Coleman v. Wilson, 912 F. Supp. 1282 (E.D. Calf. 1995), was filed in 1990 alleging that deplorable mental health care constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. After a 39-day trial, the court found the prisons severely and chronically understaffed with no method for ensuring competence of staff. The prisons failed to implement necessary suicide precautions due to severe understaffing and mentally ill inmates languished for months and years without access to care, suffering severe hallucinations and decompensating to catatonic states. After 12 years, a Special Master appointed to oversee remedial efforts reported that after slow improvement, the status of mental health care was again deteriorating. A rise in the prison population had led to greater demand for care, and existing program space and staffing levels were inadequate to keep pace. In 2006, at the time of trial before the three-judge panel, the suicide rate was approaching one per week with the suicide rate nearly 80% higher than the national average for prison populations. Suicidal inmates were held for prolonged periods in telephone booth-size cages without toilets. Slip Opn. at 11. According to the Special Master, 72.1% of suicides involved “some measure of inadequate assessment, treatment, or intervention, and were therefore most probably foreseeable and/or preventable.” Slip Opn. at 12. In 2007, the rate had risen to 82% and by 2010 there had been no improvement.

A second class action, Plata v. Brown, was filed in 2001, in which California conceded that deficiencies in prison medical care violated the Eighth Amendment. When the State had not complied with the remedial injunction issued, the Court appointed a Receiver to oversee the remedial efforts. Three years later, the Receiver described equally deplorable continuing deficiencies in medical care. In one prison, up to 50 sick inmates were held together in one 12 foot x 20 foot cage up to five hours awaiting treatment. The Coleman and Plata plaintiffs thereupon requested their respective district courts to convene a three-judge panel to order reductions in the prison population.

The Supreme Court held that if a prison deprives inmates of their basic needs for sustenance, including adequate mental health and medical care, courts have a responsibility to remedy the Eighth Amendment violations. Under the PLRA, only a three-judge panel may enter an order imposing a population limit and only after a district court has entered an order for less intrusive relief that has failed after the state has been given reasonable time for compliance. Before doing so, that court must also first consider a range of options, and then find by clear and convincing evidence that crowding is the primary cause of the violations, no other relief will remedy the situation and the relief is narrowly drawn and the least intrusive means to correct the violations. The court must also consider any adverse impact such a population limit will have on public safety and the operation of the criminal justice system. The Supreme Court thus held that the three judge-panel had properly heard evidence of then-current conditions and that no other relief short of imposing a population limit would remedy the situation. California indicates that it is proceeding to implement measures to reduce its prison population, but with the State’s severe budget crisis, it remains to be seen how effective its efforts will be.

Justice Scalia filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Thomas joined. Justice Alito also filed a dissenting opinion in which Chief Justice Roberts joined.

Found in DMHL Volume 30 Issue 5