U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Brown et al., v. Plata, et al.

May 23, 2011 In its 5-4 decision on Brown et al., v. Plata, et al., the U.S. Supreme Court justices upheld a lower court decision that overcrowded prisons in California violated constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment by preventing access to timely adequate health care services. The court rejected the state’s request for more time and flexibility to address the problem. The ruling orders the State of California to abide by aggressive plans to reduce the number of prisoners in its state prison facilities from the current 143,435 to 109,805 in two years. The . . .