In a motion filed Monday to the panel of three federal judges overseeing conditions in California prisons, Brown's lawyers asked for a two-month extension to meet the panel's first deadline to reduce crowding, a benchmark toward limits on crowding that have been already delayed several years.
The state was to have reduced crowding within its prisons to 143% of capacity by Monday, but one week earlier was told it could not count the empty medical beds at its Stockton prison to offset greater crowding elsewhere. Failure to meet the benchmark was to have automatically triggered the release of prisoners by a court-appointed overseer.a
