SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday evening gave federal judges a road map to reducing state prison overcrowding. But the proposal would take more than twice as long as the judges ordered to make the improvements they demanded and would fall short if state lawmakers did not approve certain provisions, administration officials said.
The plan appears to set up a confrontation between the governor and the judges, who made their impatience clear in ordering the state to forge a plan to reduce the number of inmates by 40,000 within two years. Schwarzenegger's plan would take five years -- if lawmakers sign off on it.
Under a second scenario, if lawmakers balk at more prison changes than they reluctantly approved last week on the final day of the legislative session, the state would retain nearly 23,000 more inmates after two years than the judges have said is reasonable.
There was no indication Friday that legislators were more inclined to approve the proposals the governor included than they were when they dismissed some of the same ideas in recent weeks under pressure from law enforcement groups.
The governor's proposal avoids anything that could be portrayed as a mass release of criminals or that would leave him on a ledge without lawmakers' support. A combination of prison construction and a variety of generally modest steps to reduce inmate numbers, it is limited to maneuvers for which he already has authority or might receive it.
If the judges find that the state's proposal violates the order they issued Aug. 4, they could hold officials in contempt. The judges could also ask inmates' attorneys to present their own plan to reduce overcrowding and order the state to implement it.
State officials said they filed the plan in U.S. District Court Friday evening, hours before the midnight deadline set by the three-judge panel overseeing a pair of inmate lawsuits. U.S. District Judges Thelton Henderson and Lawrence Karlton and Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled that crowding must be reduced because it has caused medical and mental healthcare for prisoners that is so poor it violates the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
The state has appealed the judges' ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
