A panel of three federal judges has ruled that California is not providing its prison population with adequate health care and ordered the state to reduce its prison population by up to a third. The state says it will appeal. Anti-prison advocates Rose Braz, Campaign Director of Critical Resistance, and Marc Mauer, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project, join The Takeaway with a look at this case and how the economic crisis could impact criminal justice around the country.

While campaigning for president, Barack Obama was extremely critical of the Bush administration’s treatment of detainees. But now his administration is invoking the states-secret privilege to uphold the dismissal of a federal lawsuit involving rendition and torture. Here with us to discuss it is ACLU staff attorney Ben Wizner, who argued the case for the plaintiffs.

Watch Rachel Maddow's (melo) dramatic reenactment of the hearing and Ben Wizner's appearance on her show:

NBC is hunting for the war criminals among us. The network is working on a series about international war criminals living in the United States, due to air this month or next. One of their first investigations involves a Maryland college professor who the network claims participated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. A letter from the network to the university led to the school suspending the professor. Hot on the trail of the fallout of that investigation is Brian Stelter, media reporter for the New York Times, and he joins us now.

For more, read Brian Stelter's article, On Trail of War Criminals, NBC News Is Criticized in today's New York Times.

In a frightening echo of the killing of 2006's murder of Anna Politkovskaya a very prominent Russian lawyer, Stanislav Markelov, was assassinated in broad daylight in Moscow yesterday. The speculation is that Markelov was targeted for his human rights activities. We turn to James Rodgers, the BBC's Moscow correspondent, for more on this disturbing event.

Charles ''Chuckie'' Taylor Jr., the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, is scheduled to be sentenced in Miami today. In October he was convicted of torture in the first test of a 1994 law allowing the prosecution of U.S. citizens for alleged acts of torture committed abroad. Prosecutors are seeking a 147 year term. The federal courts reporter for the Miami Herald Jay Weaver joins The Takeaway to discuss this historic case.

For more information, read Jay Weaver's article 'Chuckie' Taylor faces life sentence in landmark torture case in the Miami Herald.

A raging outbreak of cholera has struck thousands in the troubled African nation.

In what was expected to be a routine hearing, the five men charged with plotting the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks surprised the court by asking to make full confessions.

A doctor in the Congo performs an amputation with the help of a text message.