AB 2354 Seeks to Decriminalize Domestic Abuse Survivors

TW: Domestic Violence

Violence perpetrated against women and girls can put them at risk for incarceration because their survival strategies are routinely criminalized. From being coerced into criminal activity by their abusers to fighting back to defend their lives or their children’s lives, survivors of domestic violence can find themselves trapped between the danger of sometimes life-threatening violence and the risk of spending the rest of their lives in prison.

Domestic violence can have deadly consequences for survivors, often forcing them to defend their lives. This is especially true for black women. One in three women EACH DAY die from intimate partner violence, and black women are almost three times more likely to die at the hands of a current or ex-partner than members of other racial backgrounds.

Additionally, pregnant women or women who recently gave birth face a higher risk of escalating domestic violence. Each year, 324,000 pregnant women are physically or sexually assaulted by an intimate partner, and pregnancy complications, including low weight gain, anemia, infections, and first and second trimester bleeding, are significantly higher for victims of domestic violence.

Since 2021, California already mandates courts to consider the experiences of survivors who have been convicted of non-violent crime. AB 2354, the Justice for Survivors Act, introduced by Assemblyperson Mia Bonta (D18), goes even further and would allow all abuse survivors to petition the court to vacate their arrests, convictions or adjudications, and order law enforcement and courts to seal records related to the arrest and offense. These actions are vital into helping find employment and housing for people who have been system-impacted.

Kelly Savage-Rodriguez, a Drop LWOP advocate and a Just Leadership USA Leading with Conviction™ 2024 participant, shared her survival story with The Guardian in advocating for AB 2354. She was was unfairly sentenced to life without parole in 1998 for a murder she did not commit nor intend. After a long legal battle, she was eventually commuted by Governor Brown in December 2017.

In 1995, preparing to flee an abusive husband, Savage-Rodriguez planned to take an early morning Amtrak from Porterville, California, to Los Angeles and stay with her brother. After returning home from running some final errands, she found that her husband had beaten and killed her three-year-old son, Justin. She called 911. The police arrested her along with her husband. The courts found she was equally at fault for her son’s death under California’s ‘failure to protect’ charges that can criminalize the non-abusive parent in a domestic violence case because she had not fled. She was later convicted and sentenced to life without parole, same as her abuser.

Across the country, advocates are pushing for sentencing reforms that would provide a more trauma-informed approach to survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking. In the past five years, lawmakers in New York, Louisiana, Georgia, Virginia and Wyoming have passed legislation to vacate the sentences of survivors. In passing AB 2354, California can join those states. AB 2354 recently passed the Assembly Public Safety Committee and now awaits a hearing in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

You can read more about Kelly Savage-Rodriguez's story from an interview with the Drop LWOP coalition. You can also read the Guardian article, "Domestic violence victims are often criminalized. A California bill wants to change that," to learn about AB 2354 and how other Domestic Violence survivors would benefit from its passage.