Plan to Cut CA Prison Crowding Backed by Inmates' Lawyers:  Sacramento Bee writer Denny Walsh reports on CA Governor Schwarzenegger's plan to reduce 33 adult CA prison populations to 137.5 percent of design capacity within two years.  Lawyers for sick inmates stated their approval for the Governor's plan to reduce the prison population and urged a three-judge federal panel to allow state officials to decide on their methods.  The judicial panel, formed under provisions of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, ruled in August that substandard health care and overcrowding in the adult prisons violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.  Governor Schwarzenegger and Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate have made it clear they will appeal the panel's final order, no matter what it says, to the Supreme Court.  They insist that the Prison Litigation Reform Act does not empower the three judges to dictate state prison policies.  Cate stated at a press conference that "the administration would prefer a plan that reduces the population much more slowly over a greater period of time" and relies more on bond-funded expansion of the prison system.

Kindler Death Sentence to be Reconsidered:  The Associated Press reports on the Supreme Court's decision to allow lower courts to consider reinstating a death sentence for a convicted murderer who twice escaped from prison after being found guilty of killing a man who intended to testify against him.  The Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision throwing out the death sentence against Kindler for killing one-time accomplice David Bernstein in 1982 in Beard v. Kindler.  Chief Justice Roberts said the state court decision has to be taken into consideration by the federal courts. "We hold that a discretionary state procedural rule can serve as an adequate ground to bar federal habeas review," Roberts said.  Kent's post on the opinion is available here.