RBGG represents a class of the more than 34,000 men and women in California’s prison system with serious mental illness (Coleman v. Newsom, 2:90-cv-00520-KJM-DB (E.D. Cal., filed April 23, 1990). On June 25, 2024, Chief U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller ordered the state to pay $112 million in fines after finding top California prison officials in civil contempt for failing to provide adequate mental health care to incarcerated persons with serious mental illness in state prisons. The Court’s order is here.
On December 6, 2024 the Ninth Circuit heard the State’s appeal of the fines which now total $170 million. According to a Daily Journal article, State calls judge’s orders on prisoner mental health care ‘impossible’, two of the three justices on the Ninth Circuit panel were skeptical of the state’s arguments that the fines were excessive and that it was not possible to comply with the lower court’s orders.
According to the DJ, RBGG’s Lisa Ells said Judge Mueller “issued prospective, conditional fines last year and accrued fines because the state failed to comply with her order.”
“It has to be enough to make it hurt,” Ells said. “I has to be sufficiently coercive.”
Also at issue in the State’s appeal was the lower court’s order that incarcerated persons with personality disorders require mental health treatment. According to Ells, those with personality orders “are at a very high risk of suicide.”
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