Brown v. Plata

The problems found in Brown v. Plata, the recent Supreme Court decision regarding California’s prisons, result both from California’s financial problems and from the Supreme Court’s longstanding misinterpretation of the eighth amendment. Had California maintained financial responsibility, this problem might not have arisen. This inability of California to pay for means of decreasing prison overcrowding other than mass releases was noted by the court. There is no doubt that the California prison system is overcrowded; whether such overcrowding is “cruel and unusual” is another question.

As Justice Scalia notes in his dissent, the main problem with the majority’s decision is the court’s reliance on “evolving standards of decency.” In Trop v. Dulles, a 1958 case regarding loss of citizenship, the Supreme Court held that the eighth amendment gets its meaning from “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” Since this interpretation has become standard, the definition of what punishments are cruel and unusual has become more and more restrictive. The death penalty can never be applied for rape – even in a case of child rape (Kennedy v. Louisiana); nor can it be applied to a seventeen year old for violent, premeditated murder (Roper v. Simmons). An added problem with this interpretation is its heavy reliance on international law (Roper v. Simmons) as a standard of “cruel and unusual.” This “evolving standards of decency” method is made worse in that it never “evolves” to stricter punishments – any time a state or group of states attempts to raise punishment levels in response to societal problems, they are told to back down by the zealous Supreme Court.

Also problematic is the court’s decision to include all the California inmates as a class of individuals whose eighth amendment rights have been violated. These rights cannot be violated merely by the potential of their not receiving medical care; they can only be violated by an individual’s not receiving adequate care. These individuals could have their claims brought together as a class action lawsuit, but, as Justice Scalia points out, to attempt to do so with all the inmates of California prisons regardless of abuse is absurd. The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the legislation empowering the courts to order reductions in prison populations, noted this as it gives the courts the power to correct

“the violation of the Federal right of a particular plaintiff or plaintiffs.” As Justice Scalia wryly notes, the majority of the individuals released under the court’s decision will not have suffered the supposed eighth amendment rights abuses.

Justice Scalia continues his dissent arguing that the structural injunction issued by the court exceeds its constitutional authority. Normally, when a court issues an injunction it orders an action, such as the fulfillment of a contract, that requires a minimum of oversight and has a finite length. In the current case, the court has assumed for itself administrative roles over the California prison system that properly belongs to the executive. Justice Scalia argues that this authority belongs not only constitutionally, but also logically to the executive as a court simply cannot consider all the evidence necessary to make good judgments in this area. As Turner v. Safley (1987) states, “[C]ourts are ill equipped to deal with the increasingly urgent problems of prison administration and re-form. . . . [T]he problems of prisons in America are complex and intractable, and, more to the point, theyare not readily susceptible of resolution by decree. . . . Where a state penal system is involved, federal courts have . . . additional reason to accord deference to the appropriate prison authorities.” The court ignored these inherent problems and decided to order the release of 46,000 prisoners regardless of the affect on the good citizens of California. This release may not indeed remedy the supposed eighth amendment violations as there is no guarantee that the affected prisoners will be the one’s released – most likely the opposite will be true.

In Justice Alito’s dissent, he addresses problems arising from such an attempt by the judicial branch to make policy. One problem is in the fact finding. The type of relief granted by the Prison Litigation Reform Act is aimed at addressing ongoing violations. In the lower court trials, which the Supreme Court relied on for evidence, California was not allowed to bring evidence of current conditions within its prisons. The courts were thus force to rely on evidence from “old findings…including a finding made 14 years earlier… and on conditions at a facility that has since been replaced.” Thus the courts were forced to rule on past conditions and were unable to grant relief to actual parties affected, as noted above.

This broad remedy is specifically prohibited by the Prison Litigation Reform Act which demands that the remedy be narrowly tailored to address the violation of a constitutional right. By ordering a broad release of 46,000 prisoners, regardless of whether they have experience a constitutional violation, the court acts outside of those specified bounds. Justice Alito points out the cited failures of the California prison systems medical facilities which consisted solely of poor quality physicians, facilities in disrepair, lack of equipment, and unclean facilities. These problems will not be remedied by a release of 46,000 prisoners. The state of California proposed solutions to these areas, but the lower courts ignored them in favor of the prisoner release.

Given that the court’s solution does not actually address the problems in the California prison system, the court’s assessment of the potential public harm resulting from the release should also be examined. The Prison Litigation Reform Act demands that the courts give substantial weight to such potential harm. The lower courts, upon which the Supreme Court relied for evidence, merely listened to expert testimony and chose the opinion they liked best. There was disagreement between the experts, and Californian officials strongly argued that the effects on the public would be adverse.

This case represents a blatant attempt to legislate from the bench. The decision is made even worse by the fact that it is based off misinformation stemming from the poorly conducted lower court trials. The court has exceeded its constitutional powers and the powers granted to it by the Prison Litigation Reform Act and has ruled in a manner contrary to that legislation. One can only hope that the price the people of California will have to pay for this judicial tyranny will be minimal.