Judge Karlton’s Luncheon Address

(image courtesy law.com)

It was our great pleasure to have Judge Lawrence Karlton as our luncheon speaker. Naturally, Judge Karlton could not directly comment on the ongoing Plata/Coleman cases; he did, however, discuss the principles underlying them and some of the broader concerns surrounding them.

Judge Karlton opened with a discussion of the long nature of the problem; the Coleman case hails from Governor Wilson’s days, and the Valdivia case was originally filed against Governor Davis. In hindsight, the expectation that a 1995 determination that the state had violated its inmates’ Eighth Amendment rights would yield immediate results seems rather naive; there is still much work to be done before the system can be brought into compliance with constitutional standards. Fourteen years later, there is still no bed plan for mentally ill people; there is no systematic program for evaluating inmates; treatment programs are few, and sorely lacking sufficiently trained administrators; the confidential maintenance of medical records is far from perfect; and there is no system for identifying suicide risks. Much of the plight of the medical system can be traced back to the massive closing of mental institutions during the Reagan era; so far, no CA institution can be said to comply with constitutional standards. Not much progress has been made with parole revocation reform, either.

The question then becomes why the CDCR does not rectify the situation to rid itself from the federal judiciary; the answers are complex and subtle. One possible answer provided by Judge Karlton is that prison administration is a large bureaucracy, and in such institutions, existing rules have a tendency to perpetuate the status quo and discourage change. There is the additional complicity of other professional systems, such as the psychiatric system; it is difficult to hire professionals to work in prisons located in remote places. As Judge Karlton reminded us, we do not have to have an evil disposition to end up with a dysfunctional system. There is also the issue of lobbying power; prisoners and their families do not represent a real constituency.

As to the broader issue of the court’s role in reforming prisons, Judge Karlton had interesting things to say. Federal judges do not stand for reelection, they present a hope for change. However, law and courts, he argued, are bludgeons; what is needed for these problems is a scalpel. Federal courts can only intervene when state standards fall beneath the Federal constitution. What is desperately needed is a change in culture within the state, and attention to the parts that are hidden from state citizens; those which, according to Dostoyevsky, are the measuring rods for our true level of civilization.

Neuroscience, Treatment, and Drug Courts

After the morning panels, it seemed that reforming our sentencing scheme was almost as impossible as being in three places at once, which is why I was only able to attend one of the concurrent panels on alternative sentencing. Dr. Emily Murphy, a behavioral neuroscientist working at Stanford, provided us with some fascinating information on the potential of neuroscience in rehabilitation in general, and in drug addiction situations in particular.

One of the problems with the emerging trend of neurolaw, which is otherwise a fascinating and promising field, is the tendency of some professionals to aggrandize its promise and advocate it as a cure-all, magic bullet for social ills. Murphy strongly advised against such simplistic perspectives, and her talk was an excellent example of nuanced, intelligent, sane discourse on the promise and limitations of science. Having briefly examined California’s history with brain-altering therapies, in particular the controversial UCLA Violence Project of the 1970s, Murphy turned to dicussing three avenues in which neuroscience could be helpful in criminal justice enterprises.

The first of these, prediction, focuses on the ability to foresee who might recidivate or benefit from a certain kind of treatment. This is a goal we are, at this point in time, far from achieving; there is no such thing as a single “crime spot” or a “violence spot” in the brain we can identify. One thing some scientists have done is focus on the category of psychopathy; psychopaths, sophisticated and manipulative, are highly overrepresented in the incarcerated population. Current diagnostic tools are not very helpful for screening purposes, since they consist of lengthy interviews by extensively trained people; however, Dr. Kent Kiehl has done some research on this on New Mexico inmates using a portable MRI scanner and is optimistic about its predictive potential.* Another issue is the possibility of predicting dangerousness. The Macarthur foundation has devleoped some multifactorial quantitative measures which, albeit imperfect, might have some predictive value. The key would be to obtain brain mapping, follow up on the inmates after their release from prison to see recidivism patterns, and then use the correlation to offer predictions. It should be remembered, however, that typical analysis of MRI relies heavily on statistical correlations, rather than on identifying a single spot on the brain, and therefore cannot be dispositive. It is also quite difficult to predict whether a certain type of treatment would be suitable for a certain offender; pharmacological treatment is akin to a sledgehammer in that it impacts the entire brain, and therefore often has complicated side effects.

Some treatment options are also being explored. In drug addiction cases, this mostly consists of substitution (replacement of the drug with another drug) and/or direct antagonism (drugs which suppress the craving by creating adverse consequences). Going through the existing substitutes – the well-known methadone and several others – was fascinating; naturally, treatment efficacy is seriously impacted by compliance. Also, some of the antagonizing drugs produce other bad reactions that might, ironically, exacerbate drug use.

Some more extreme treatment measures include psychosurgery and brain stimulation, which share an ugly, frightening history. However, brain stimulation has been found to be effective for treating Parkinson’s disease, and may also be valuable for various addictive conditions. The problem is finding dependable studies, based on ethical research, and published in reputable journals, that would confirm the efficacy of treatment.

The mixed results of treatment led Murphy to advocate a research focus on prevention. Several avenues were explored, such as the possibility of vaccination against addiction (which raises compliance issues) and the potential for actual erasure of drug-related memories, thus eliminating the positive associations to drug use. The problem is, as some audience members pointed out, that drug use becomes such a pervasive aspect of a person’s whole life, that a great many things and situations may be associations.

Murphy closed her talk by emphasizing the fact that neuroscience cannot be, in itself, a magic answer to drug prevention, and that holistic, environmental factors should also be taken into account. The perfect environment for considering all these factors is a drug court, which could create the sort of support system that would enhance the efficacy of any treatment chosen. She also reminded us of the need to be subtle and sophisticated about raising ethical questions – not accepting things at face value, but also not ruling them out with a knee-jerk reaction.

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* props to Nadja Habinek for the link.

Sentencing Reform in California

One thing that became crystal clear on the Thursday opening panel was the lack of coordination between the different steps of the correctional process, starting with sentencing; but the deep problems, and the immense challenges in fixing them, were fully introduced only on Friday morning on the sentencing panel.

The panel was opened by Judge Tricia Bigelow, Associate Justice at the 2nd District Court of Appeal, who teaches sentencing to judges, and who used the words “labyrinth” and “byzantine” when describing the CA sentencing scheme (citing a colleague who compared our sentencing laws to bureaucratic memoranda and toy assembly instructions!). Since 1977, Judge Bigelow explained, the basic structure for single-count felony sentencing consists of choosing a “base term”, and then adding conduct and status enhancements. The penal code provides “triads” for each particular crime (for example: 2, 3, or 5 years); after Cunningham v. CA, a temporary legislative fix allows the judges to select one term out of the triad based on a set of factors from a non-exclusive list. After adding enhancements – additional prison time due to the nature of the crime (injury, gun, excessive taking in a theft) or to the circumstances of the criminal (previous convictions) – the judge can review a variety of statutory reasons for mitigation or aggravation. This is a fact-specifc process, which is difficult to systematize. The judge must also state reasons for selecting the base term out of the triad.

The picture becomes murkier, though, because CA law is a patchwork of sentencing initiatives that create special sentencing schemes for special cases. Not only do we have a “ghetto” of indeterminate sentencing for lifers, but we also have three strike laws, which, incidentally, create changes in sentencing for two-strikers as well (double the punishment); special sentencing schemes for sex offenders, gun offenders, gang offenders, and others. Judge Bigelow amused/horrified/bewildered us with some of the example cases she gives to judges when she teaches sentencing; it is truly a difficult maze and, as she reports, none of them got one of the examples right. She mentioned the need for a unified system that produces predictable results.

How must we proceed in producing a unified system? Kara Dansky, Executive Director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, strongly advocated for a sentencing commission. She started by highlighting two themes in CA sentencing: the unique rigidity and complexity of our sentencing system, and the shift in discretion from the hands of judges and correctional officials to legislators and prosecutors. What we have now is remarkably different from what the original enactors of the Determinate Sentencing Scheme had in mind in 1976; the triads, which were supposed to simplify matters and provide certainty, ended up being part of a patchwork, and are surrounded by hundreds of enhancements. Every single time a sentencing commission has been proposed – and there have been 11 bills so far – it has died, been vetoed, or stalled. There is now a new bill for a sentencing commission before the Assembly, based on Tentative Draft #1 (which, despite its tentative name, is the last word from the people who brought you the Model Penal Code).

A sentencing commission would have several purposes. It would be expected to develop sentencing guidelines (with an eye toward creating uniformity while still allowing judges room to individualize the sentence); collaborate with judges (who should be more involved than they are now); provide information and generate knowledge from the entire system (there is no single nonpartisan forum for policy, nor is there any communication between the different silos maintaining datasets on CA sentences); explain the logic behind sentencing policy (a duty from which our lawmakers are exempt); and ensure that all of this happens on a permanent and ongoing basis.

Dansky also tackled several of the arguments against sentencing commissions, arguing that they were based on misconceptions of the institution and the logic behind it. Two worth mentioning were the concern that commissions would be undemocratic, when, in fact, they would be a transparent governmental agency, and the concern that voter initiatives would render them useless, which may be the case for some, but not all, sentencing situations.

It was a pleasant surprise to find out that not only judges and policymakers had concerns with sentencing; Michael Jimenez, President of CCPOA, showed us that correctional officers and guards have vested interest in what happens to their inmates before they arrive in prison. In fact, Jimenez argued, the sentencing scheme is so bad that he could not imagine anything worse. The CCPOA has been pushing for a sentencing commission as well, but very disheartened with the political process around it. It all revolves, said Jimenez, around money; there is no political fix for the sentencing problem as long as our policy calculations are influenced by short term, year-to-year tactics.

The politics of sentencing reform were furtherly driven home by State Senator Mark Leno, who shared with us the sobering realities of sentencing politics. California, said Leno, now spends 11 percent of its budget on corrections – that is, more than it spends on higher education, and obtains abysmal results. We have twice the national recidivism rate and half the national parole completion rate. 70% of the inmates come out of prison functionally illiterate; 70% face serious alcohol and drug problems; 60% will be homeless and unemployable. We are the only state that has both determinate sentencing and parole – three years of it, irrespective of the crime – and no intermediate sanctions. As prison population ages, the costs per prisoner rise; they double for inmates over 50, and triple for inmates over 60.

Leno told us of several attempts to amend CA laws and how they were fought – unfairly and inaccurately – by aggressive lobbyists using fear tactics. An attempt to amend the three strikes law a few years ago, to require that the third strike be a violent offense, seemed to make sense to voters – until the governor had a wealthy sponsor flood the media with statements on the potential to release dangerous rapists and murderers, information left out of the brochure because of its inaccurate, misleading nature. Another attempt to reform the system by allowing people to exit parole after 12 months – which would have saved 70 million dollars, which would then be directed into rehabilitation programs in prison – was killed by a floor alert saying that the bill would release thousands of rapists and murderers. Immediately after the bill was killed, Leno got the following message from the lobbyists: “we apologize for the inaccuracies in our floor alert”.

Leno highlighted that the fear tactics were not a republican problem. Neither republican nor democrat lawmakers want to appear soft on crime at any cost. Under the circumstances, and given the fear of elected officials, a sentencing commission is necessary.

Litigation over Medical Services in Prison

Our next panel, chaired by my terrific colleague Aaron Rappaport, highlighted one of the hottest issues on the correctional agenda today: the issue of litigation over medical services.

Don Specter, Director of the Prison Law Office, opened the panel by telling us some of the realities of prison litigation. The Prison Law Office has been litigating prison health care in CA for three decades, and with the exception of the first trial, they have won every single case by judgment or consent by proving Eighth Amendment violations, which are extremely difficult to prove. Despite these victories, the conditions persist. In the latest chapter, the courts were motivated to make the Plata/Coleman tentative ruling in light of truly alarming data (provided by the Receiver’s office) on the standards of care, such as the shockingly high avoidable death rates in prison. Why did such conditions persist? Not only does overcrowding prevent the system from reaching acceptable standards of care, but the State is not committed, in the deep sense of the word, to the provision of medical treatment to inmates. The system focuses on the custodial aspects of its function; the medical services are an add-on, an afterthought, which the system is not designed, and unmotivated, to cope with, especially in cases of exigencies. Courts are rather poor institutions when it comes to solving such problems with injunctive relief, and are often dismayed at the State’s noncompliance, to no avail. The current move to block the Receivership, said Specter, is one such example. Instead, said Specter, the priorities should be as follows: a reduction of prison population to manageable levels (104,000 prisoners); proper classification of prisoners; and providing the Receiver with proper resources to do his job.

The next speaker, Lori Kohler from the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UCSF, reminded us of an important value: compassion. Prison is an invisible city, and as a society we fail to accept its existence and needs, and simply assume that people just “go away”. But this “city” in particular poses real challenges to medical staff: not only are minorities and poor people overrepresented – which raises questions of medical care prior to entering prison – but also, prison creates some of the most complex cases medical professionals have to deal with. Kohler spoke of the “culture clash” for medical professionals in prison: the doctors walk in with compassion and care, but prison environment constantly reminds one why people are there. There are plenty of opportunities to connect with the compassion of custodians and work together, since the guards themselves have vested interest in the provision of proper medical care; however, the need for safety, and system exigencies, complicate this. Safety rules (such as the inability to transfer people to appointments in the fog, or if someone lost a pair of scissors) complicate the provision of services. Also, the incredible low-tech environment problematizes the ability to take care of complicated medical situations such as HIV, Hepatitis C, and chronic pain. Another challenge is the hiring of proper staff; financial revenues are not enough to guarantee quality and care. Kohler reports having witnessed some truly horrific care, not just in the realm of passivity and neglect. She highlighted the importance of generating a culture shift within the institution by modeling compassion and care.

Clark Kelso, the Federal Receiver for the medical system, spoke of the health system as a symptom of the broader problems in prison: a prime example of insufficient resources to care for an exceedingly large number of prisoners, as well as bad allocation of the resources we already have. The receivership – a court-designated instrument to remedy the situation – is only one solution out of the four class actions dealing with medical, mental, and dental care, as well as with violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Part of the receiver’s job is to coordinate with the institutions designed to solve the other pieces of the puzzle.

Since the Receiver cannot change sentencing policies in California, his role in that respect is limited to providing technical information and advice to policymakers, such as the possible impact of sentencing policies on prison population. His primary responsibility, though, is to provide care for whatever population the state decides to incarcerate. In that respect, he focuses on providing mroe access to care, a higher quality of service, more staff, and construction suited to house these needs. Despite the fierce battles with the State, the State and the Receivership actually agree on most of these.

One important point made by Kelso had to do with the need to invest more money as an initial cost, which will go down in time. For example, in order to use telemedicine in prison, network lines need to established, which is very costly (150,000,000) because of the distant locations of the prisons.

Kelso is able to marshal data to assess how much progress has been made, and is pleased to see some important improvements. 85% of medical appointments are successfully made. Staffing is increasing. The challenges in making faster progress have to do with the need to play “catch-up” with thirty-five years of a failure to invest in the medical services, as well as from the need to make the medical services applicable in a system that has custodial and security needs.

Finally, Joyce Hayhoe, Legislation Assistant Secretary at CDCR discussed some of the recent improvements the Department made. Reminding us of the situation prior to the Department’s reorganization in 2003, she highlighted the punitive aspect of sentencing (ratcheting up sentences as a response to punitive public sentiments) as well as the lack of attention to rehabilitation. The recent Plata/Coleman litigation has impacted the CDCR quite deeply. First, the Receiver has managed to greatly improve health care for inmates (we were all invited to San Quentin to see for ourselves; we think we’ll take the CDCR’s invitation seriously!); and second, the three-judge panel decision requires a three-pronged approach to the overcrowding situation, which will include building more capacity, sentencing reform, and rehabilitation programs. She argued that the population is currently at a three-year low, and that the number of “bad beds” in gyms and cafeterias has been decreased by 7,000.

Defining the Problem

The conference launched yesterday to a great start. Our first panel, Defining the Problem, featured five thoughtful perspectives on the broad picture of the California problem.

Craig Haney, who opened the panel, had some disturbing realities to share with us. He had brought with him – and shared with us on the big screen – pictures from his visits to prison, each of which was really worth a thousand words. Inmates sleeping in cafeterias and gyms; medical examinations conducted in little cages; group therapy in cages inside a bathroom; triple bunks; and unbelievable density. The numbers were quite alarming. While the prisons become more and more overcrowded, crime rates have gone down; as Haney explained, most experts agreed that the rising imprisonment rates did not account for the crime decline. Also, the gap between prison population and prison capacity keeps growing. Haney did a terrific job of tying the California situation to the broader U.S. correctional disease, while highlighting the particulars that made CA a unique situation; particularly, the truly disappointing percentages of people exposed to rehabilitation programs and receiving medical care. And, as per one of the slides in his presentation, we got yet another sobering look at the expanding gaps between non-minorities and minorities in terms of their exposure to the correctional system.

Jeanne Woodford marshaled her extensive experience in prison management to identify three main sources for California’s misery: sentencing policies, uniform policies, and overcrowding. She traced the history of determinate sentencing since the late seventies, pointing to the many deficiencies of our penal code. She also pointed out the lack of coordination between jurisdictions regarding implementation of correctional policies, highlighting the following amazing fact (which I didn’t know): a person could be – and many people are – on probation in several different counties simultaneously, in which case one spends one’s post-incarceration time shuttling between counties several weeks for drug testing and following often contradictory courses of action. Without fact-based policies, and without clear objectives for incarceration beyond “punishment”, wardens and staff cannot be assessed by desirable measures such as decline in recidivism rates or program completion, but rather by how many prisoners escape; not a promising recipe for healthy corrections. Finally, Woodford discussed the fact that overcrowding is not only a problem in itself; it is a complicated factor which exacerbates everything else that happens in the system.

Harold Atkins from Centerforce was cheered by the audience after providing us with a valuable personal account of the problem from the perspective of one who had gone through it and who now reaches out and educates others. Having gone into prison for the first time as a young adult, he told us of being shocked not only by the lack of personal space, but also by the lack of safety. He also highlighted not only on prison conditions but also on the success of programs; the good fortune to be picked up for a program does not fall into the lap of many, and the programs’ reach is very minimal. The programs themselves, Atkins reminded, should not be implemented without thought; we must test them repeatedly to see what works and make them as widely available as possible. Another thing to consider are his wise words regarding the norms and codes that lead young people into prison; growing up in a difficult neighborhood, at the time of his incarceration he had already been well-schooled in the rules by which prison environment functions. Much of the educational work we have ahead of us needs to happen on the outside.

Frank Zimring followed by delivering a passionate “grumpy sermon” from the podium, in which he shared four important insights. First, the California problem is not an acute one; it is a chronic one. Prison population has been steadily growing for a long time, since the 1980s. Second, and importantly, the problem can be traced to the catastrophic error Zimring labeled the “correctional free lunch”. As Zimring pointed out – and as most amazed audience members had not known before – the “division of labor” between county and state is not conducive to anything helpful. The county decides on the sentence, while the state (who, in the era of determinate sentencing has no control over the length of stay) picks up the cost. Therefore, sentencing does not take into account the broader correctional costs. If this was not shocking enough, the third and fourth insights have to do with the deeper causes for these horrors: they were not part of a broad conspiracy, but rather a combination of complete oversight on the part of the politicians who established determinate sentencing and the logical conclusion of direct democracy in california: citizens do not mind paying to let people rot, but they very much mind paying to make their life nicer. One important answer advocated by Zimring was to establish, as soon as possible, a coherent Penal code, which is not full of “pick and choose” voter-approved policies and special laws, and which is updated to reflect the real severity of crimes.

After these, CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate had his work cut out for him, and his reply reflected the kind of concern and thoughtfulness that one expects from someone in charge of a system in serious crisis. The overcrowding challenge, he argued, made everything in prison more difficult, and required serious prioritizing of services. He shared the big dilemmas faced by CDCR in light of the gubernatorial 400,000,000 budget cut. Cutting all programs was not an option, and curring staff was also problematic; one possible answer to the cuts was engage in parole reform. In tems of parole reform, said Cate, we need to pay attention to who we place on parole, and rather than using a general parole policy, reserve parole for serious offenders through identification of crime types (unsurprisingly, sex offenders came up) or more efficient crime indexing. We also need to consider the introduction of credits for achievement in programs on the inside as categories for release. Cate also advocated building more prison cells, particularly for the Level 4 population, as part of the plan to alleviate overcrowding and treat inmates humanely. One thing he had come to learn, said Cate, was that with the given resources – that is, reliance on state employees – capacity would never catch up with population, and community assistance was hugely important.

The audience asked some difficult questions, many of which were addressed to Secretary Cate. One such question involved the elderly and frail prisoners, and whether release policies were not better for this group than creating special wards for them. The other problem raised was that, while prisoners are generally assessed for their medical, mental, dental, and vocational needs, it is very difficult (and, as Atkins’ experience shows, rare) to actually match a prisoner with a befitting program. Another important issue, directed at Zimring, involved an attempt to gauge an “acceptable” number of prisons, which turns out to be a very difficult number to produce.

Conference Blogging Invite and Publication Options

Dear Readers,

Today and tomorrow we plan to blog about the conference panels, and we’d like to invite you to participate. If any of you has thoughts or ideas you would like to expand on in this forum, please be sure to comment on our posts; and, if you’d like to guest-post yourselves about any of the topics we will be discussing, please email me your post to aviramh at uchastings dot edu, and I’ll be delighted to post it for you. The same goes for bloggers who might be interested in cross-posting.

We expect to be covering topics covered by the different panels:

  • “big picture” thoughts on the problem
  • the medical services litigation
  • the CA sentencing structure
  • alternative adjudication
  • special populations in prison
  • dangerousness, risk, and release
  • strategies for re-entry


I should also mention that the terrific journal that is co-hosting the conference, the Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal, will be dedicating its fall issue to articles, comments, and writings on the conference topic and by conference participants, and that includes you! The Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal is committed to promoting and inspiring discourse in the legal community regarding issues of race, poverty, social justice, and the law. If you are interested in submitting a piece for consideration in response to this conference to the Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal’s forthcoming issue, please contact the Submissions Editor, Raegan Joern, at hrplj.submissions@gmail.com. To learn more about the Journal, or to subscribe, please visit the Journal’s website.

See you there!

TOMORROW! California Corrections Crisis Conference

In light of the medical services litigation, and many other recent developments, our conference tomorrow can’t be more timely. With more than forty participants – academics, policymakers, activists – we are eagerly looking forward to an opportunity to discuss our crisis in an intelligent, comprehensive way, and to think together about solutions. We have hundreds of people confirmed to participate, coming from all over the country and even some from abroad. Advanced registration is closed, but we will reopen registration on the event day and let people in on an available space basis. We look forward to having you with us. 

The updated schedule for the conference, and other pertinent information, is here.

Opinion piece by the Federal Receiver

You have to give the Federal Receiver Clark Kelso credit. He’s been attacked repeatedly in the press by Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Brown for spending on “gold-plated” health care, for intruding on state sovereignty, and for other failings. Kelso, to his credit, hasn’t backed down. And he has taken the fight to the press, as well.

Just today, in the Sacramento Bee (my new favorite paper), Kelso published an opinion piece, entitled “Prison health care reform can save money.” According to Kelso,the prison health care system has been racked by waste and abuse. According to Kelso, eliminating these inefficiencies (and worse) has been a central task of the receivership, and the work has started to bear fruit. As Kelso writes, “We have found ways to cut $500 million from the annual cost of prison health care by cutting waste.”

Kelso focuses on three key reforms: (1) reducing the very expensive out-of-prison referrrals; (2) developming new cost-saving programs, like a new pharmacy program, and new measures to manage health records; (3) “Implementing performance measures in the prison medical care program.”

Is 10,000 beds excessive?

Readers interested in the prison health care crisis should take a look at a fascinating article in today’s Sacramento Bee. The article offers a detailed look at work of the Federal Receiver, and it’s not entirely laudatory. For example, the article raises questions about Clark Kelso’s plans to build 10,000 long-term medical and mental health beds. That number, the article suggests, is widely out of line with what other prison systems offer on a per inmate basis. Whether you agree with the article’s conclusions or not, the piece warrants a close read.

On a related point: The Sacramento Bee deserves to be commended for its coverage of the prison health care crisis. It seems to be one of the only papers today paying any significant attention to the issue (SF Chronicle, where are you?).

What’s the Big Deal? Federal Receiver or Special Master?

As discussed in the previous post, the Governor has filed a motion asking Judge Henderson to replace the Federal Receiver, Clark Kelso, with a “Special Master.” What’s the difference? Is it really that big a deal? Well, yes it is.

Here’s a helpful and concise explanation of the difference between the two from the Legislative Analyst’s Office:

“A Receiver, such as the one appointed by the court in the Plata case, differs from special masters that have been approved in other legal cases affecting the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). A Receiver has direct executive authority, and acts in place of the Secretary of CDCR in regard to the management of the medical care system. We are aware of only a few federal court rulings involving prison systems that have involved the appointment of a receiver. They include a 1979 federal court order that made the Governor of Alabama the receiver of that state’s prison system and the 1995 federal court appointment of a receiver for the Washington DC jails. Special masters, such as the one appointed in a separate legal case known as Coleman v. Schwarzenegger involving improvements in inmate mental health care, are a more common remedy in such cases. Special masters monitor the compliance activities of other parties (in this case, CDCR). They lack, however, direct executive authority and must rely on the federal courts to order changes when they discover problems in compliance with court orders.”

The excerpt makes clear what an unusual and extraordinary remedy the appointment of a Federal Receiver represents. But of course, sometimes extraordinary problems demand extraordinary remedies…..