California officials submit plan to cut prison population to federal judges

California officials said late Thursday they can comply with a federal court order to cut the number of inmates in the state’s overcrowded prison system by 44,000. But they said the only way to reach that number is to circumvent the state legislature and state law.

In court papers filed late Thursday, the Schwarzenegger Administration asserted that to achieve the prison reductions the federal judges want, the legislature must change state law – or the federal judges must waive it.

The three federal judges rejected an earlier state proposal that would have reduced the inmate population by only half what the judges wanted.

Corrections Secretary Mathew Cate said the Administration produced the new plan as ordered, but will not endorse it. Cate said, "We thought that the plan we produced before which reduces the population much more slowly over a much greater period of time and relies primarily on prison construction and evidence-based forms is the way to go, only the court rejected all that and said they want it all within two years, and so this is us just complying with that order."

In its new plan the administration proposes to ask California’s lawmakers to lower the sentences on certain petty crimes and to allow some inmates to serve sentences under house arrest or in hospitals using GPS monitoring devices.

The plan also endorses legislation that would raise the threshold for grand theft from $400 to $950. But both are changes the legislature rejected earlier this year. That’s one reason why the plan also includes ways to achieve reductions without legislative approval.

The plan suggests a number of state laws the judges could waive to achieve reductions in inmate population. Things like waiving environmental laws to speed up prison construction, waiving labor laws to allow California to send more prisoners out of state, and waiving aspects of the California penal code, to let people convicted of minor crimes serve time in county facilities or rehab programs.

Donald Spector with the prison law office said the Administration’s latest plan shows serious thought.

"At least we’re working off the same page now," Spector said. "Before it [the plan] wasn’t even worthy of consideration and this one is. That’s definitely a step forward, I’m sorry it took so long to get here, but at least we’re making some progress."

Spector’s legal team has two weeks to file a response to the Adminstration’s plan to reduce prison overcrowding. Then the federal judges will rule whether or not to approve it.