Federal court weighs Calif. progress on mental health care for prisoners

Federal Judge Lawrence Karlton must rule on the case by April 7.

Los Angeles Times: Judge Weighs Brown's Bid To End Court Oversight
California's bid to end court oversight of the care it gives about 33,000 mentally ill inmates was heard Wednesday by a federal judge who voiced concern that he had only days to weigh thousands of pages of contradictory claims and issue a decision (St. John, 3/27).

The Associated Press: Judge Hears Arguments About Calif. Prisons Mental Health Care Oversight
A federal judge on Wednesday struggled with how to gauge whether conditions for mentally ill inmates in California prisons have improved enough under federal oversight to return control of the facilities to the state, as Gov. Jerry Brown is seeking. Lawyers for California argued in court that after 18 years of federal oversight and billions of dollars in state spending, the care now meets the requirements of the U.S. Constitution (Thompson, 3/28).