Sheriff: 'Enough is Enough' in Supreme Court Ruling to Release Prisoners

Federal judges at the trial, appeals and Supreme courts have already ruled in favor in inmates.

In a 6-3 decisionAug. 2, 2013, the high court ordered California to find other quarters for nearly 10,000 inmates, easing what has repeatedly been ruled to be "cruel and unusual punishment.''

About 1,000 prisoners will be released in every large city in Los Angeles County, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice commented Friday in his dissent on a 6-3 vote by the judiciary to reduce the California prison population immediately.

Los Angeles County officials reacted Friday with shock and anger to a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court ordering an immediate end to severe overcrowding in California's prisons.

“There had been talk of even sending more inmates to the L.A. County
jail system,'' according to Steve Whitmore, spokesman for Los Angeles County
Sheriff Lee Baca.

"The sheriff says 'absolutely not, enough is enough."'
In a 6-3 ruling handed down Friday, the high court ordered California to find other
quarters for nearly 10,000 inmates, easing what has repeatedly been ruled to
be “cruel and unusual punishment.''
Federal judges at the trial, appeals and Supreme courts have already ruled in favor in inmates. The governor had argued that recent shifts of prisoners to county jails, and other steps, have shown solid progress to eliminate those unconstitutional overcrowding conditions.
On Friday, the court ruled again that the prison population must be reduced immediately.
Justice Antonin Scalia dissented, and wrote, “California must now release upon the public nearly 10,000 inmates convicted of serious crimes, about 1,000 for every city larger than Santa Ana.''

But the majority voted to back its 2011 ruling that putting three inmates in single-bunk cells, providing spotty and inferior health care and other serious overcrowding constitutes a violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
It ordered the state to reduce the prison census to 137.5 percent of the
prisons' design capacity.
An attorney with the Prison Law Office in Berkeley, Paul Clement, denounced the state's delaying tactics and appeals as “open defiance of the federal judiciary.''
In Los Angeles, the sheriff's spokesman blasted today's order as “an ill-advised decision.
“It adds significant strain to a system already stretched to its capacity,'' Whitmore said.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said the governor should “stop pussyfooting and immediately utilize available detention beds, at less than half the cost of the state's prison beds.''
Antonovich said those beds were at private and out-of-state prisons.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said “it is inevitable that public safety will be adversely impacted by the court's decision.
It will exacerbate the criminal justice challenges (that) California communities are experiencing due to the intractable crises in our prisons and local jails.''

--City News Service