SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday challenged a federal court order to reduce the prison inmate population, saying the state has done all it can to relieve overcrowding and improve health care.

Meeting further demands by the courts, he said, would require ignoring state sentencing laws and would put the public at risk by releasing violent offenders.

As a result, Brown urged the judges to end court oversight of inmate medical and mentalhealth care, and vowed to press his fight to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

“There’s no question that there were big problems in California prisons,” the Democratic governor said at a Capitol news conference. “After decades of work, the job is nowcomplete.”

Attorneys representing inmates disputed his claim, asserting that inmates are still needlessly dying of neglect, and mentally ill inmates stillgo untreated - even as conditions have improved.

Such dismal conditions prompted mentally ill inmates to sue the state in 1991; sick inmates to sue in 2001; and apanel of federal judges to order the state to reduce the population of its 33 adult prisons by about 33,000 inmates by June.

The 2009 order was upheld by the nation’s high court.

Front Section, Pages 3 on 01/09/2013