[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday ruled [opinion, PDF] in Brown v. Plata [Cornell LII backgrounder; JURIST report] to uphold the order requiring California to release up to 46,000 prisoners to remedy the state’s overcrowded prisons [JURIST news archive]. In the 5-4 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court concluded that the extreme overcrowding of the California prison system is causing inmates to receive inadequate medical care in violation of the Eighth Amendment…