The message from the panel of judges to Sacramento yesterday was, you broke it, you bought it:

Reporting from Sacramento – A panel of federal judges, accusing California officials of obstruction, on Thursday denied the state’s request to delay an order to produce a plan for reducing its prison population by 40,000 inmates.

Aides to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said they would take their request to the U.S. Supreme Court today.

The judges issued their order on Aug. 4 in two long-running lawsuits by inmates. The state asked for a delay pending its appeal of the order to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was filed separately Thursday.

In rejecting the state’s motion for the delay only two days after it was filed, the judges said they had been “more than patient with the state and its officials” and harshly criticized them for “conflicting representations” in court that have caused the cases to drag on.

It’s getting comical at this point.  Thelton Henderson initially found California’s prison system to violate individual rights in 2005.  Over those four years, state officials have resisted, bargained, shouted, and appealed their way into oblivion, trying all along to do as little as possible about the clear crisis.  The judges are asking for a plan that essentially mirrors the Senate’s version of prison reform working through the legislative process right now.  For all the protests about “wasting taxpayer dollars” to come up with a workable plan, the judges are essentially asking for a copy of what’s already being done.

The state doesn’t want to give them one, because they now it’s insufficient to conform with the clear guidelines on reducing the inmate population.  And they’d rather appeal and appeal and be forced to respect Constitutional rights than do it themselves.  With the taxpayer money and effort spent to studiously ignore this problem, we could have already solved it.

John Myers reports that US District Judge Thelton Henderson just ordered up a big glass of STFU for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown.

The federal judge who took control of California prison health care some three years ago rejected a request today to scrap the court-appointed receivership.

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson denied a petition from Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to replace the receivership with the more limited powers of a special master.

The 24-page ruling from Henderson is probably best summarized by the following passage:

“Based on the entire record in this case, the Court is far from confident that Defendants [the state] have the will, capacity, or leadership to provide constitutionally adequate medical care in the absence of a receivership, and Defendants have presented no evidence to the contrary.”

Schwarzenegger, Brown, and the entire political establishment in Sacramento have had plenty of chances to show their commitment to solving the prison crisis over the past 30 years, and they have miserably, utterly failed.  They want to hide from those failures because they don’t want to pay to meet their obligations to prisoners under the US Constitution.  And of course, the Administration plans to appeal the ruling, because they can’t admit their own failure.

Good to see that Henderson didn’t fall for the coordinated swiftboating of Clark Kelso.  Maybe now we can talk about cost-effective reforms that make sense instead of a fealty to “tough on crime” logic and a shrinking from obligations as a public servant.

(By the way, I highly recommend Adam Serwer’s article about prison reform, citing Kansas as a case study in how to drive down recidivism, provide economic opportunity for those coming out of the corrections system and save money all at once.)