In June a federal court ordered Planet California to reduce its prison population by 10K to relieve overcrowding conditions so bad that they amount, the judges said, to cruel and unusual punishment. California Governor Jerry Brown asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the order. Even Governor Moonbeam is nimble enough to recognize that releasing 10K criminals, many of them cruel and unusual, is not the best thing for public safety in California, already a pretty unusual place without these characters running around loose.
Friday, the Supremes — with Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito objecting — refused to halt the order. The 10K villains must be sprung. So here’s my advice to Brown: Load the 10K on busses, drive them to Washington, D.C., preferably to Ruth Buzzi Ginsburg’s neighborhood, and release them there. This might help her and her liberal colleagues to understand what cruel and unusual means, up close and personal.
