Return to previous page

Legal Briefs

This year Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) filed an amicus curiae brief in a case that is being heard by a three-judge panel in the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Northern Districts of California. The brief supports release of prisoners as a way to reduce the prison population and argues against an expansion of California’s prison system. In addition, the brief informs the courts that there are several ways of solving the overcrowding situation including reforming California’s parole and sentencing policies and offering job-training and other re-entry programs to support the transition of people back to their communities.

CURB is comprised of several organizations, including LSPC, All of Us or None, California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP), Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes (FACTS), Free Battered Women, Justice Now, National Lawyers Guild-Los Angeles Chapter, Transgender, Gender-Variant and Intersex Justice Project, and The Youth Justice Coalition-Free L.A.

In another related case, LSPC agreed to act as co-counsel in a case in the superior court in Sacramento. The lead counsel is Tom Nolan and the named plaintiffs are CURB, Dorsey Nunn (co-director of LSPC), Cynthia Chandler (co-director of Justice Now), Bonnie Long, Ericka Sokolower-Shain, and Camila Chavez. All plaintiffs are taxpayers and the case is considered a “taxpayer action.” The complaint requests injunctive and declaratory relief regarding the implementation of AB 900.

More specifically, the complaint asks the court to declare that the issuance of lease-revenue bonds in the amount of $7.4 billion to construct 53,000 new prison and jail beds is unconstitutional and unlawful, to declare that the defendants’ use of interim debts to finance the planning and construction of the new beds authorized by AB 900 is unconstitutional and unlawful, and, to permanently enjoin defendants from participating in or assisting with issuing lease-revenue bonds authorized by AB 900.

AB 900 (Solaria) was passed in April 2007 and signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger. It authorizes the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to design, construct, or renovate prison housing units, prison support buildings, and programming space in order to add up to 7,484 beds, and to acquire land and design and construct new buildings at existing facilities to provide medical, dental, and mental health treatment or housing for 6,000. Financing would come from lease-revenue bonds.

AB 900 was passed without a single public hearing and voters were never given the opportunity to approve the construction of additional prison and jail beds called for in AB 900. In previous years, voters had overwhelmingly rejected the approval of construction bonds for more prisons, so to avoid losing another vote, the legislature chose to use lease-revenue bonds as the funding mechanism for AB 900.

Using lease-revenue bonds to fund the construction of prison and jail beds will cost taxpayers significantly more than general obligation bonds and has the potential of impacting California’s budget for many years into the future, which will lead to a budget that provides more spending on prisons than on higher education.

Return to previous page