FMEP Co-Sponsors Senate Bill 94 Authored by Senator Dave Cortese
Bill allows select incarcerated Californians judicial review of sentences
State Senator Dave Cortese (D-San Jose) has announced he’s drafted Senate Bill 94, a progressive criminal justice reform bill to provide Californians, especially elderly prisoners, who received the death penalty or are serving life in prison with the opportunity to have their cases reviewed. Cortese said in a prepared statement that 88 percent of people serving life without parole fall within the “lowest risk” range on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)’s California Static Risk scale. Elderly individuals, particularly, are unlikely to commit further offenses after their release, noted Cortese.
The recidivism rate for individuals who were sentenced to life without parole, before their sentences were reduced and they were released, is zero percent, according to the Cortese statement.
Under the measure, incarcerated persons who have served at least 20 years of their sentences and whose crimes were committed before June 5 1990 may petition for judgers to review special circumstance crimes. In creating a process for the review of cases that haven't been looked at in decades, judges will have the discretion to leave a sentence unchanged or apply a lesser sentence.
“The Legislature has adopted several laws over the last decade that take into account mitigating factors when imposing a sentencing, including reforms for victims of intimate partner violence, human trafficking, or those with intellectual disability,” said Senator Cortese. “This has, in essence, created an inequitable system whereby individuals are locked into extreme sentences from decades ago that are inconsistent with our present-day sentencing schemes.”
SB 94 is co-sponsored by the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the Felony Murder Elimination Project, California Coalition for Women Prisoners, the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, Californians United for a Responsible Budget, Families United to End Life Without Parole, and The Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition.
View the full statement from Senator Cortese regarding SB 94.
