California Democrats Plan to Release ‘Worst-of-the-Worst’ Murderers After 25 Years

One of the worst anti-victim, soft-on-crime bills looks as if it will be passed by the California Legislature under the guise of criminal justice “reforms.”

Senate Bill 94, which was shelved last year, would allow prison inmates sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (LWOP) before June 5, 1990, and has served at least 25 years in custody, to seek a recall of their sentence and be resentenced to a lesser sentence.

Last week, SB 94 was reactivated for an Assembly floor vote, the Globe reported. The move caught many off guard, but also quickly reunited opposing groups once again. This included Senate GOP leadership, which released a 14 page analysis of the bill, and showed just how dangerous the bill is.

Why would any state lawmaker, sworn to uphold the California and United States Constitutions, support this lawlessness as Democrats in the California Legislature are?

According to Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, co-sponsor of the bill, “There are people languishing in state prisons that if they were in court today, would receive a more just sentence.”

No word from the murdered victims’ families.

Tulare County District Attorney Tim Ward told the Globe told the Globe last year that this bill is a “travesty to victims’ families.” Ward said victims and their families are told that life without parole means “no leniency, and especially in a death sentence.” But this bill completely undermines “no leniency.”

Senate Bill 94 would allow an individual serving a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole due to special circumstance murder to petition the court to recall the sentence and re-sentence to a lesser sentence if:

• the offense occurred before June 5, 1990

• they served at least 25 years in custody

What could prevent an inmate is not eligible for recall and resentencing?

a) The individual was convicted of first degree murder of a peace officer engaged in performance of their duties or of a peace officer or former peace officer in retaliation for the performance of their official duties;

b) The individual was convicted of first-degree murder as the actual killer of three or more people; or

c) The individual was convicted of a registerable sex offense, or the facts of the offense for which the petitioner is serving a sentence of LWOP as reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the individual involved the commission of a registerable sex offense.

According to Sen. Cortese:

“The majority of people serving a life without parole sentence are classified as low risk according to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)’s own California Static Risk Assessment tool – 88% of people serving life without parole have been assessed with the lowest risk score on that scale. Research also conclusively demonstrates that there is little risk for elderly individuals to re-offend or recidivate upon release. For individuals previously sentenced to life without parole who were granted a commutation and released, the recidivism rate is zero percent. Based on CDCR data, an analysis from the Special Circumstances Conviction Project of UCLA Center for the Study of Women, estimates that this reform might qualify 600 LWOP cases for review. These cases represent a very narrow population that consists of the most elderly individuals behind bars. Many of these individuals have shown decades of exemplary behavior, participated in extensive positive programming and have devoted themselves to becoming positive members of society. This bill does not automatically let anyone out of prison. It does not guarantee resentencing. This bill simply creates a process for the judicial review of cases that have not been looked at in decades.”

SB 94 allows a judge the authority to resentence life-without-parole murderers 25-to-life, which under this bill, makes them eligible for parole having already served at least 25 years in prison.

DA Ward said that SB 94 is “another unfunded mandate,” with no additional funding for county DAs and prosecutors. Ward said these murderers will come back into court which will be expensive, and cost prosecutors additional time and funding, for cases they long ago tried and prosecuted for murderers they thought were sentenced to life in prison.

Ward also warned that the bill says “we as prosecutors no longer can write our own conditions.” The prosecutor decides which crimes to charge, not the judge.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been letting convicted felons out of prison for the last few years claiming overcrowding – 76,000 to be specific, according to his executive order authorizing the CDCR to XXXXX.

The California Governor works harder to infringe on the constitutional rights of legal gun owners, while letting felons out of prison early.

“According to a 2022 estimate by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the average annual cost to incarcerate one person in state prison is $106,000. People eligible for resentencing under this bill are sentenced to LWOP; without resentencing, they will likely remain in prison until they die. Incarceration costs for elderly and infirm inmates tend to be higher than incarceration costs for other inmates. To the extent this bill ultimately results in release of incarcerated people on parole, rather than continued incarceration for the rest of their lives, CDCR will experience significant cost savings, potentially in the millions to tens of millions of dollars,” Assembly Floor Analysis reports.

Those now ineligible under SB 94 are:

1. The individual was convicted of first degree murder of a peace officer;
2. b)  The individual was convicted of first-degree murder as the actual killer of three or more people; or
3. c)  The individual was convicted of a sexual offense – rape, sodomy, lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 years of age, rape by instrument; and oral copulation – committed in conjunction with the homicide for which the petitioner is serving an LWOP sentence.

“The beneficiaries of this measure, if passed, will be criminals convicted of first-degree murder with special circumstances,” Michael Rushford of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation wrote at the Globe. wrote. “These are murderers who killed multiple victims or killed in concert with a rape, robbery, kidnapping or torture.”

Even the Public Policy Institute of California has reported on the recent dramatic increase in homicides and crimes with guns in the state, which included a troubling rise of homicides.

Assemblyman Bill Essayli (R-Corona) said at a press conference Thursday, speaking out against SB 94, “I am disgusted by the actions of radical Democrats in our state legislature who have chosen to resurrect one of last year’s most egregious ‘public safety’ bills, SB 94. This disastrous proposal would allow the most vicious murderers to be released from prison. SB 94 would break the promise made to victims that society would never see these criminals on our streets again. Under this proposal criminals like Scott Peterson who viciously murdered his wife and unborn child would be eligible for early release. Californians are sick of Democrats’ soft on crime agenda in Sacramento and we must reject SB 94.”