Prisoner Releases

California must shrink the population of its teeming prisons by nearly 43,000 inmates over the next two years to meet constitutional standards, a panel of three federal judges ruled Tuesday, ordering the state to come up with a reduction plan by mid-September. The order cited Gov.

Exactly three weeks after Mitrice Richardson apparently vanished in Malibu Canyon, Los Angeles police detectives assigned to her case are convinced that the 24-year-old woman is alive. "Mitrice is out there," LAPD robbery-homicide Det. Chuck Knolls said. "We don't believe she's a victim of foul play." But her whereabouts still bedevil Knolls and fellow detective Steven Eguchi. Both men are working the case full-time, and had past assistance from 12 other detectives. At the same time, about 50 family members and friends of Richardson are doing their own tracking of alleged sightings from Malibu to outside L.A. County.

The Obama administration is preparing to admit into the United States as many as seven Chinese Muslims who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in the first release of any of the detainees into this country, according to current and former U.S. officials. Their release is seen as a crucial step to plans, announced by President Obama during his first week in office, to close the prison and relocate the detainees.

California prison officials, facing severe overcrowding and a financial crisis, have been granting early releases to inmates serving time for parole violations. State officials said the dozens of prisoners set free from the California Institution for Men in Chino and from lockups in San Diego and Shasta counties had 60 days or less left on their terms, or had been accused of violations and were awaiting hearings. The releases were approved by the state parole board.

The Los Angeles police union Monday called on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to oppose a bid by former Symbionese Liberation Army member and fugitive Sara Jane Olson to serve her supervised parole in Minnesota, where she would be near her family.

A Federal Bureau of Prisons policy excluding murderers, rapists and others with violent crimes on their record from an early-release program is invalid because authorities have failed to explain why those inmates are ineligible, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the prison administration to reconsider the application for sentence reduction from Jerry Crickon, a federal prisoner in a Long Beach halfway house due for release in six months.

Los Angeles County prosecutors acknowledged Tuesday that they failed to inform a West Covina woman about a plea deal in December that allowed her estranged husband out of jail after he pleaded guilty to threatening her with a stun gun. The lapse is one of several decisions the district attorney's office is investigating after Curtis Bernard Harris, 34, kidnapped Monica Thomas-Harris, 37, and killed her before taking his own life over the weekend at a Whittier motel.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected today to propose shutting 48 state parks -- including some popular Southern California beaches -- releasing far more prison inmates than previously projected and increasing car fees for the second straight year as part of his solution to the state's fiscal crisis.

Two women held hostage for more than five years by leftist rebels were released deep in Colombia's eastern jungle Thursday and handed over to Red Cross officials in helicopters provided by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration is exploring a settlement of two lawsuits that would require California to dramatically reduce the number of inmates in its overcrowded prisons -- and limit the Legislature's influence on the issue, according to participants in the discussions. The settlement discussions in the federal court cases, which have been consolidated, are in an early stage, and the framework of a deal has not been ironed out.