California Attorney General Jerry Brown and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger filed a motion in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Wednesday asking a judge to put an end to a plan to build new medical facilities at state prisons and give control of the prisons’ health care system back to the state.

 

In a prepared release, Brown said the court “should terminate this unaccountable prison receivership and its $8 billion construction plan, restoring a dose of fiscal reality to the provision of inmate medical care in California.” Trying to explain why, Brown said the federal receivership “has turned into its autonomous government operating outside the normal checks and balances of state and federal law.”

 

The receivership was created back in 2005 after a federal court discovered that health care in the 33 state prisons did not meet constitutional standards.

 

Receiver J. Clark Kelso fired back calling Brown’s filing another way to draw public attention. Kelso further said both Brown and Schwarzenegger are “desperate to deflect attention away from their conspicuous lack of stable leadership.”

 

Furthermore, Kelso said the removal would mean to give up on improvements, which is not exactly his plan. Kelso plans to build seven facilities by mid-2013 with 10,000 beds for chronically or mentally ill inmates. He also wants to improve existing facilities at the 33 state prisons.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will hear arguments in the case Feb. 12.