The judges previously moved the deadline to February while a court-appointed mediator works to find a long-term solution with Gov. Jerry Brown's administration and attorneys representing inmates who say crowding leads to conditions so poor that they violate constitutional standards.
"The court is bending over backward to accommodate the state," said Don Specter, director of the nonprofit Prison Law Office and one of the attorneys representing inmates in the case. "We're anxious to either complete the negotiation process, or if that's not successful, to resume litigation at the earliest possible time."
With the extension, the state now faces a spring deadline to reduce the population of its major prisons to about 110,000 inmates. Despite recently announced plans to open several publicly and privately operated prisons, the state is still about 4,400 inmates over the population cap set by the courts.