As seems to happen so often these days, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and California prison officials will face off in court again Monday against the prison health czar charged with bringing inmate health care up to a constitutional level.

This time it's a motion by state officials – in a long-running class action lawsuit on behalf of sick inmates – to replace the federal receiver, law professor J. Clark Kelso, with a special master to aid in restoring management of health care to those responsible for running California's sprawling network of adult prisons.

The same motion asks U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson to dump Kelso's "turnaround plan of action," which contemplates expenditure of billions of state dollars on seven new facilities for physically ill and mentally unstable prisoners.

Lawyers from the attorney general's office face a tough chore persuading Henderson, who appointed Kelso, to sack him. The judge has made it clear he does not feel the receiver's work is done.

More likely, the state's lawyers are setting the stage for an appeal of the expected denial of their motion.

Already pending before an appellate court in the same case is the state's appeal of Henderson's order directing the defendants to tell him why he should not hold Schwarzenegger and Controller John Chiang in contempt for refusing to fork over $250 million the receiver says he needs to upgrade existing prison medical facilities.

When the motion to get rid of Kelso was filed in January, Attorney General Jerry Brown, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Matthew Cate and Department of Finance Director Michael Genest acknowledged Kelso and a predecessor improved health care, but they said the receiver outlived his usefulness and there is too little accountability for the huge pile of taxpayer money he wants.

"His wild spending far exceeds what the (U.S.) Constitution requires and what the state is capable of," Brown said then.

At the same time, Schwarzenegger promised, "The receiver will never get that money, that is important to know. Because I will not give it to him. I think the controller will not give it to him. And I don't think the legislators will give it to him."

In a response to the motion filed last month, Kelso's attorney, James Brosnahan, rejected the state's argument that the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996 prohibits a federal judge from appointing a receiver and mandating construction, even when, as here, a judge finds the lack of inmate health care is resulting in preventable deaths.

Brosnahan cited case law which, he said, holds that federal district courts retain all their traditional powers not expressly revoked by the act.

"The PLRA does not expressly or even impliedly revoke the court's power to appoint a receiver," he declared in the response. Brosnahan reminded Henderson that state officials took the position during previous hearings in the suit that they "do not dispute … the court has the power to appoint a receiver."

As to aborting Kelso's construction plan, the state officials "come nowhere near meeting their burden of showing the construction would violate the law" and "fail to acknowledge" that some of the costly and often criticized components "were included at the request of state officials," Brosnahan maintains.

His brief urges Henderson to convene an evidentiary hearing if additional specific findings are necessary.

Such a hearing is not required, the state's lawyers argue in a reply to Brosnahan, because "this court lacks authority … to order a receiver and prison construction."

The class-action suit in which this matter is playing out, Plata v. Schwarzenegger, is but one piece in a maze of litigation presided over by both federal and state judges grappling with the vexing issues plaguing prisons and parole in California.

Meanwhile, the receiver Thursday dismissed his chief counsel, John Hagar, and Hagar's assistant, Stephen Weston. Kelso's CEO for medical services, Dr. Terry Hill, declined to resign and was fired.

Call The Bee's Denny Walsh, (916) 321-1189.