There are approximately 173,000 prisoners in state facilities, over 30,000 more than the prisons are designed to handle, according to two separate 2004 reports. The motion in the U.S. District Court in Sacramento was filed as part of an already settled class action lawsuit that was pursued to improve the mental health care of prisoners.

The second motion filed in the San Francisco court is part of a class action case over all health care services in the prison system. "Inhumane levels of crowding have overwhelmed the efforts of these courts to assure even minimal standards of human decency in the delivery of medical and mental health care," wrote San Francisco plaintiff attorney Michael Bien in a press release.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has not yet issued a response to the motions. Attorneys for the plaintiffs seek a December hearing before a federal judge to request a three-member judiciary panel to hear the population limit motions.

In October, Gov. Schwarzenegger issued an emergency order to CDCR to enter contracts with out-of-state prison operators to begin transferring up to 5,000 prisoners. Last week, 80 inmates were taken to a medium level facility in Macon, Tennessee. CDCR has signed agreements to to transfer up to 2,260 inmates to prisons in Arizona, Oklahoma and Indiana, besides Tennessee.