United States Supreme Court rejects California’s appeal of prison population cap

The United Supreme Court today rejected California's appeal of an order to cap the state's prison population. The move doesn’t mean the state will release inmates within the next few months.

Last year a panel of three federal judges found that overcrowding in California's prisons was the main reason inmates lack adequate medical and mental healthcare. The judges ordered California to craft a plan that would reduce the population by about 40-thousand inmates.

The state appealed. For technical reasons, the US Supreme Court declined to consider that appeal. But California will get to file another appeal.

Donald Spector, the attorney for inmates, says that means more legal wrangling ahead and while that's going on Spector says, "prisoners are not going to be released pursuant to the three judge panel's order until the appeal is decided one way or the other."

In a written statement, Schwarzenegger’s legal affairs secretary Andrea Hoch confirmed the state will file its appeal today. Hoch said, “We fully expect the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the three-judge panel's prisoner release order."

The Supreme Court could take up the matter this spring or summer.