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Calif. to ask US high court to reject inmate order
Court Watch |
2013/05/15 07:25
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Gov. Jerry Brown's administration filed notice Monday that it will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to again weigh in on the long-running prison population case.
It wants the high court to reject a lower court order requiring California to reduce its prison population by an additional 9,000 inmates by year's end. The Democratic governor had promised to appeal.
The state filed its three-page notice of appeal about a month after federal judges threatened to cite Brown with contempt if he fails to comply with a previous order upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011.
California is required to reduce its prison population to about 110,000 inmates as the best way to improve inmate medical and mental health care but remains about 9,300 inmates over the limit. Brown has said further inmate reductions are expensive, unnecessary and dangerous to the public.
"The Court did not fully or fairly consider the evidence showing that the State's prison health care now exceeds constitutional standards," the state said in its filing. |
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Court considers Calif. prison mental health care
Court Watch |
2013/04/02 17:20
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A federal judge in Sacramento is set to hear arguments Wednesday over Gov. Jerry Brown's push to regain state control of inmate mental health care after 18 years of federal oversight and billions of dollars spent to improve treatment.
Lawyers representing the state argue that California is now providing a constitutional level of care to its prison inmates, while attorneys for the inmates say more improvement is needed.
California has spent more than $1 billion in construction for mental health facilities and increased salaries to hire more and better mental health workers. It now has more than 1,700 psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, social workers and nurses to treat more than 32,000 mentally ill inmates, or about one specialist for every 19 patients.
"California has invested tremendous amounts of money, resources and effort to transform its prison mental health care system into one of the best in the country," the state said in one of its recent court filings.
Inmates' attorneys say the efforts so far are not enough and that more mental health facilities must be built and staffed. They also say more must be done to reduce a suicide rate that exceeds the national average for state and federal prisons.
California's prison suicide rate was 24 per 100,000 inmates in 2012. That compares to 16 per 100,000 inmates in other state prisons and the historical average of nine suicides per 100,000 inmates in federal prisons. |
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Bin Laden's son-in-law: Pleads not guilty in NY
Court Watch |
2013/03/12 06:26
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Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the charismatic al-Qaida spokesman, fundraiser and son-in-law to Osama bin Laden, is likely to have a vast trove of knowledge about the terror network's central command but not much useful information about current threats or plots, intelligence officials and other experts say.
Abu Ghaith pleaded not guilty Friday to conspiring to kill Americans in propaganda videos that warned of further assaults against the United States as devastating as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Believed to be more of a strategic player in bin Laden's inner circle than an operational plotter, Abu Ghaith would be the highest-ranking al-Qaida figure to stand trial on U.S. soil since 9/11. Intelligence officials say he may be able to shed new light on al-Qaida's inner workings — concerning al-Qaida's murky dealings in Iran over the past decade, for example — but probably will have few details about specific or imminent ongoing threats.
He gave U.S. officials a 22-page statement after his Feb. 28 arrest in Jordan, according to prosecutors. They would not describe the statement.
Bearded and balding, Abu Ghaith said little during the 15-minute hearing in U.S. District Court in New York — in lower Manhattan just blocks from Ground Zero — and displayed none of the finger-wagging or strident orations that marked his propaganda in the days and months after 9/11.
Through an interpreter, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan asked whether he understood his rights. Abu Ghaith nodded and said, "Yes." Asked whether he had money to hire an attorney, he shook his head and said no. He nodded and said yes when asked whether he had signed an affidavit describing his financial situation. |
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Accused UK police killer changes plea to guilty
Court Watch |
2013/02/15 22:33
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A 29-year-old man accused of murdering two unarmed British police officers in a gun and grenade attack dramatically changed his plea to guilty Tuesday, midway through his trial.
Dale Cregan had denied killing Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes, but on Tuesday admitted the murders, replying "guilty" as a court clerk read out the charges.
The two officers were killed as they responded to a burglary call near Manchester, northwest England, in September.
Prosecutors said Cregan — who had made the false emergency call — waited for police to arrive, then opened fire with a Glock pistol.
He fired 24 shots at Bone, hitting her between five and eight times. Hughes was shot eight times, including three times in the head as she lay on the ground.
As he fled, Cregan lobbed a military fragmentation grenade into the yard of the house where the police officers lay, prosecutors said |
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