Judges’ Power Over Prisons Is Upheld

The federal appeals court in San Francisco, disagreeing with six appellate panels elsewhere in the country, on Monday declared unconstitutional a key provision of a 1995 law aimed at curbing the power of federal judges to oversee prison conditions.

The 3-0 decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals arose from an Arizona case but directly affects at least three prison rights cases in California.

Arizona officials said they would seek a rehearing from a larger panel of 9th Circuit judges and if that move is not successful would ask the Supreme Court to review the case. California officials said they may join Arizona’s effort.

Legal experts said the high court probably would take the case because there now is a clear conflict on the issue among federal circuit courts. The 9th Circuit has often been at odds with the more conservative Supreme Court on cases involving claims of constitutional rights.

Meanwhile, the ruling will keep in place a bevy of judicial decrees that have governed prison conditions at facilities in nine Western states, including California, that are within the 9th Circuit’s jurisdiction.

Over the last couple of decades, inmates have filed hundreds of lawsuits nationwide challenging prison conditions. Although many suits have been thrown out of court, others have led to lengthy trials.

Frequently, those cases have ended with consent decrees negotiated by lawyers for inmates and the states that have specified certain standards that a prison must meet and have given judges continuing authority to oversee the prisons and ensure that the standards are met.

In California, one decree has mandated minimum requirements for lawbooks that must be made available in prison libraries throughout the state. Another decree has governed minimum living conditions for inmates on death row at San Quentin. A third decree covers conditions for prisoners at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville.

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The law at issue, the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, was passed by Congress to change that situation and end what state officials have called judicial “micro-managing” of prison systems and mollycoddling of inmates.

Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.), one of the measure’s chief proponents, contended that it would “return sanity and state control to our prison systems.”

Advocates for prisoners said the statute would improperly strip federal courts of their rightful power to determine what the Constitution permits with regard to prison conditions.

The law contained strict limits on consent decrees and provisions allowing state officials to have existing consent decrees terminated.

After President Clinton signed the measure into law, prison officials throughout the nation started filing court actions seeking to have consent decrees lifted--efforts that have been resisted by prison advocates, leading to a spate of new litigation.

In some cases, federal judges have granted state requests. Both the decree on prison law libraries and the one governing San Quentin have been terminated by judges in response to the new law. Both of those rulings are on appeal to the 9th Circuit.

In other cases, however, federal trial judges across the nation have struck down the law. Until Monday though, all those lower court decisions had been overturned by federal appeals courts--in Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, New York, Richmond and St. Louis.

The case before the 9th Circuit began with a ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert C. Broomfield in Phoenix, who held that the law violated the constitutional mandate providing for separation of powers between the three branches of government.

The new law had a Catch-22 quality, Broomfield wrote, noting that it allowed a consent decree to be continued only if a “current or ongoing violation” existed, something that was “unlikely to occur, precisely because the [consent] decree was in place.”

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Randall S. Papetti, the Phoenix attorney who represented the Arizona inmates, the American Civil Liberties Union and prison advocates in California and Washington, joined in praising the 9th Circuit’s ruling that upheld Broomfield’s decision.

But lawyers in the Arizona and California attorney general’s offices sharply criticized the decision.

“Once again, the 9th Circuit stands alone,” said Thomas J. Dennis, assistant attorney general in Arizona.

Peter J. Siggins, a senior assistant attorney general in California, echoed that sentiment, saying that the state might file a friend-of-the court brief supporting Arizona’s request for further review.

In breaking the unanimous pattern of appeals courts upholding the new law, the 9th Circuit judges said, “We respectfully disagree with our sister circuits. We believe they have not applied Supreme Court precedent upholding the separation of powers among the several branches of government with sufficient force.”

The judges said that by passing a law that effectively terminated voluntary consent decrees, Congress had unconstitutionally invaded the territory of the judiciary by reopening final judgments of the federal courts.

The decision was written by Jane A. Restani, normally a judge of the U.S. Court of International Trade, who was sitting by designation. Her opinion was joined by two of the 9th Circuit’s most liberal judges, Stephen Reinhardt of Los Angeles and William Canby of Tucson.

Despite the panel’s composition, the ruling should not be considered “liberal” or groundbreaking, said Yale University law professor Judith Resnik, an expert on federal courts and consent decrees.

“This decision reflects a very traditional, old-fashioned idea of courts,” Resnik said. “Article III of the Constitution gives the courts certain authority. . . . Congress can change laws, but people have to believe if a court acts, Congress can’t simply change the outcome of a particular case by the Congress reopening the case.”