"Federal judges to rule on California prison crowding"

The title of this post is the headline of this AP piece reporting on an expected ruling concerning Califorina's prison problems.  Here is how the article begins:

California's day of reckoning has finally come for three decades of tough-on-crime policies that led to overcrowded prisons and unconstitutional conditions for inmates.  The federal courts have already found that the prison system's delivery of health and mental health care is so negligent that it's a direct cause of inmate deaths.

A special three-judge panel reconvenes Tuesday and is prepared to decide whether crowding has become so bad that inmates cannot receive proper care.  If they do, the panel will decide if lowering the inmate population is the only way to fix the problems.  That could result in an order to release tens of thousands of California inmates before their terms are finished, a move Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republican lawmakers say would endanger public safety.