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09-1233 GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, ET AL. v. MARCIANO PLATA AND RALPH COLEMAN, ET AL.

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

1. Whether the Court’s jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1253, which extends only to orders “granting or denying … an interlocutory or permanent injunction” rendered “by a district court of three judges,” authorizes direct review of a single-judge court’s decision to convene a three-judge panel, which does not grant or deny injunctive relief.
2. Whether the three-judge court clearly erred in concluding that the conditions for a prison overcrowding limit under 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(3)(E) were satisfied based on its fact-intensive determinations (i) that prison overcrowding is the primary cause of California’s failure to provide inmates with constitutionally adequate mental and medical healthcare, and (ii) that, in light of numerous unsuccessful previous court orders spanning years of failed remedial efforts, “no other relief” would remedy the ongoing constitutional violations.
3. Whether the three-judge court’s order requiring California to reduce overcrowding to within 137.5% of its prisons’ total design capacity, while affording state officials broad discretion to choose which remedial measures will safely and effectively address the prison overcrowding crisis, is narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary, and is the least intrusive means necessary to correct the ongoing violations of inmates’ federal constitutional rights.

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