On January 4, 2001, the sheriff of Kings County filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of California for the County of Kings against the County, seeking injunctive relief relating to the overcrowding of the County Jail. The Court (Judge Peter M. Schultz) granted relief stipulated to by both parties on March 7, 2001, issuing a prisoner release order and a permanent injunction setting a population capacity limit for the jail.

Over the following years, the parties worked together to manage overcrowding in the jail, including building a new jail to which all prisoners were transferred in 2006. When it became clear that the new jail, too, had begun to experience overcrowding, the parties moved to apply the population cap to the new jail as well, and after an inspection of the jail and a public hearing, the Court granted the motion on October 17, 2007.

The docket indicates that another stipulated motion to modify the permanent injunction was filed on July 13, 2012; as of the date of this summary, there is no indication that the court has yet acted upon this motion.

Christopher Schad - 07/18/2012


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