State lawmakers have rejected a bill introduced by a Santa Clara County senator that may have given some inmates serving life sentences without the potential for parole for murder a likelihood at release.
Senator Dave Cortese, a Democrat from San Jose, authored SB 94 in 2022 in hopes of allowing inmates convicted of murder committed before June 5, 1990, and who’ve already served no less than 25 years of their sentence, to be eligible for parole.
“After two years of negotiations and over a dozen amendments considered, I am incredibly disappointed that SB 94 was not given the opportunity to be heard and the amendments were not brought to a vote by the full House,” Cortese said in an announcement. “The bill was not brought to court like those it would have helped.”
The bill faced opposition from victims' rights and law enforcement groups in addition to Republican lawmakers.
“Far too often here in Sacramento we hear about the rights of criminals while the rights of victims are trampled upon,” said Rep. Juan Alanis, a Modesto Republican and former sheriff's sergeant, in an announcement. “I am proud that we were able to help prevent the wounds of victims and their families from being reopened for such gruesome crimes as murder and rape by releasing criminals who were rightly sentenced to life in prison.”
The bill was supported by the Oakland-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which called it “a modest reform that allows judges to reconsider rulings that are at least 25 years old.”
Had the law been passed and enacted, the convicted murderers would have been in a position to ask a judge to scale back their sentence to 25 years or life, with consideration for parole. The law wouldn’t have applied to people convicted of premeditated murder of a police officer on duty or certain sex offenses at the side of manslaughter.
This quickly caused a stir amongst victims' rights activists like Vanetta Perdue. The woman from North Carolina almost lost her life in 1982 when her violent husband, who was separated from her mother, broke into their house near Monterey, doused Perdue's mother with gasoline and set her on fire. She died and left her children to die together with her within the flames. A 12 months ago, she spoke out against the law on the State Capitol in Sacramento, saying: “Life without parole is exactly what it should be.”
During the legislative session that ended on Saturday, the bill didn’t receive the vital variety of votes and was placed on the “inactive” file.
Cortese was unavailable for comment Monday. But in his statement late last week, he said he remained concerned about inconsistencies in the prevailing law, which supplies some notorious inmates the chance to use for parole while others who were minorly involved in a deadly crime don't get the possibility. SB 94 followed a series of criminal justice reform measures pushed by the state's Democrats in recent times.
“We must continue the conversation and re-engage with the racist, inconsistent and harmful sentencing that has disproportionately impacted Californians for over twenty years and will continue to wreak havoc until it is fixed,” Cortese said in an announcement.
But Sen. Kelly Seyarto, a Republican from Murrieta and vice chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee, said the bill “would have been devastating to public safety and victims' rights,” and lots of of Cortese's fellow Democrats, who’ve overwhelming majorities within the House, agreed. “We know that when voters come together and demand to be heard, even the overwhelming majority must take it seriously and listen to the will of the people.”
Originally published:
image credit : www.mercurynews.com