# California’s AG office under Harris resists court-ordered prison-population cuts

Date: 2011

## The fact

In 2011, after the [US Supreme Court](/organizations/us-supreme-court)’s Brown v. Plata decision, California’s attorney general’s office under [Kamala Harris](/people/kamala-harris) continued to litigate and slow aspects of court-ordered prison-population reduction.

## Context

The Court held overcrowding unconstitutional. Neighbouring mortgage 2012 is a different AG file. She did not sit as CDCR secretary.

Mortgage 2012 is neighbouring. Prop 19 2010 is neighbouring.

The Vice President of the United States presides over the Senate, casts tie-breaking votes, and carries delegated [White House](/organizations/white-house) portfolios. She does not write House bills, CBP operational orders, or Federal Reserve rate decisions. A vice president is not co-author of every presidential statute.

## Evidence and sources

California Department of Justice carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently.

## Significance

The path is justice and [humanitarian access](/drivers/humanitarian-access): resisting court-ordered decarceration after Plata is a dated overcrowding-continuation instrument.

## What is established and what is not

Established: 2011 AG-office resistance after Plata, independently reported, while she was attorney general.

Not established: that she designed the overcrowding, or a unique later recidivism coefficient from that spring.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Her office litigated the state’s position. CDCR ran the prisons.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies California’s AG office under Harris resists court-ordered prison-population cuts, not a later speech about California’s AG office under Harris resists court-ordered prison-population cuts.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. California’s AG office under Harris resists court-ordered prison-population cuts on 2011-05-23 is not a licence to treat every later California Department of Justice communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average California’s AG office under Harris resists court-ordered prison-population cuts into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to The Court ordered cuts. Her office litigated the state’s position. CDCR ran the prisons. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series.

## People

- Kamala Harris: https://factrail.ai/people/kamala-harris

## Drivers

- Judicial independence erosion (court capture): https://factrail.ai/drivers/justice-judicial-independence-erosion
- Humanitarian Access: https://factrail.ai/drivers/humanitarian-access

## Sources

- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-prisons-california-idUSTRE74M0N120110523
- https://oag.ca.gov/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/us-harris-plata-2011