Legal News

Schwarzenegger brushes aside judge's contempt threat over inmate medical care

By Jason Siegel

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and prison officials brushed aside a federal judge's looming threat on Monday to hold him in contempt of court for failure to release $250 million to a court receiver as down payment for improved inmate medical care.

During a tense hearing on Monday it was clear that the state does not plan to come up with the money by a Nov. 5 proposed deadline offered by an attorney for the inmates, James Brosnahan of Morrison & Foerster's San Francisco office.

Late in the day, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson ordered California to turn over $250 million to the federal receiver by Nov. 5 or face a contempt of court hearing on Nov. 12.

The case presents unique questions of how much authority a federal judge has to order state expenditure of funds to repair constitutional violations in its prisons.

Henderson has previously declared state prison health care conditions so shoddy that inmates die needless from lack of treatment or medical mistakes in violation of the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

In 2006, Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in state prison health care, but little has changed since then.

The state acknowledged it could not fix the problems alone and agreed to a receiver appointed by Henderson. Plata v. Schwarzenegger, No. C01-1351TEH. He appointed J. Clark Kelso, a University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law professor who stepped in as acting state insurance commissioner in 2000 following a corruption probe of the elected commissioner.

Kelso called for the state to pony up $8 billion for construction of seven medical facilities for the state's 170,000 inmates and to hire doctors and nurses and provide training to improve care.

But the state has balked at turning over the initial $250 million to Kelso. Daniel Powell, deputy attorney general, told Henderson on Monday that the state has not received enough information from Kelso on what he would do with the money for the state to seek bond funding, before it takes money from the treasury.

Powell said the court cannot order the state to construct prisons under the federal Prison Litigation Reform Act. "it would raise a fundamental sovereign immunity concern," he said. Powell said he had found no case law in which federal judges had ordered state prison construction.

Henderson shot back that it might be that Powell "can't find another case where prisoners are dying, so there are a lot of first impression issues." Brosnahan said the plaintiffs are not seeking new prison construction, but construction of facilities that meet minimal health care standards for people who are already in prison.

He added that this is the first time in the long-running dispute that the state has raised sovereign immunity.

Brosnahan gave the judge a proposed order giving the state until Nov. 5 to pay up or face a contempt of court order no later than Nov. 12. Henderson said he wanted to review the order and "proceed very carefully" before signing an order.

As he rose to leave he added, "I want Mr. Kelso and Mr. Brosnahan to proceed full speed ahead.

-- Pamela A. MacLean

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on October 28, 2008 (boomark / email).