Prisoners Coming to a Neighborhood Near You

Another great day in California:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A special panel of federal judges has tentatively ruled that California must release tens of thousands of inmates to relieve overcrowding.

The judges say no other solution will improve conditions so poor that inmates die regularly of suicides or lack of proper care.

They say the state can cut the population of its 33 adult prisons through changes in parole and other policies without endangering public safety.

The three judges said a final population figure would be set later.

In Monday's tentative ruling, the judges said they want the state to present a plan to trim the prison population in two to three years.

Easy answer - there's a whole wing at San Quentin that could be vacated rather quickly if we'd just put an express lane in there and stop the endless appeals.

UPDATE: Patterico gives us some background on the judges:

For example, you’d never know by reading the article that all three judges were appointed by President Jimmy Carter.

Or that Lawrence Karlton is the same judge who ruled the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional — a decision that legal experts across the land derided as absurd. Or that Thelton Henderson is the judge who blocked Proposition 209, California’s anti-affirmative action proposition — a decision that was later reversed by the Ninth Circuit in a unanimous ruling. Or that Stephen Reinhardt is so pro-defense that (like Rose Bird) he has never met a death penalty case where he didn’t reverse the death verdict — in over 25 years as a federal judge.