BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: SB 629 Hearing Date: May 12, 2015
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|Author: |Mitchell |
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|Version: |April 6, 2015 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |No |
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|Consultant:|LT |
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Subject: Crimes: Taking Person From Lawful Custody of Peace
Officer
HISTORY
Source: Mayor Kevin Johnson, Sacramento
Prior Legislation:None
Support: Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs;
Association of Deputy District Attorneys; California
State Conference of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People; California Narcotic
Officers Association; Los Angeles Police Protective
League; Riverside Sheriffs Association; Los Angeles
Probation Officers Union; AFSCME Local 685
Opposition: None known
PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to eliminate the term 'lynching'
from the Penal Code.
Existing law provides that "the taking by means of a riot of any
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person from the lawful custody of any peace officer is a
lynching." (Penal Code § 405a.)
Existing law provides that "every person who participates in any
lynching is punishable by imprisonment, as specified, for two,
three, or four years." (Penal Code § 405b.)
This bill would amend this section to read, "A person who
participates in the taking by means of a riot of another person
from the lawful custody of a peace officer is guilty of a
felony, punishable by imprisonment, as specified, for two,
three, or four years."
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
For the past eight years, this Committee has scrutinized
legislation referred to its jurisdiction for any potential
impact on prison overcrowding. Mindful of the United States
Supreme Court ruling and federal court orders relating to the
state's ability to provide a constitutional level of health care
to its inmate population and the related issue of prison
overcrowding, this Committee has applied its "ROCA" policy as a
content-neutral, provisional measure necessary to ensure that
the Legislature does not erode progress in reducing prison
overcrowding.
On February 10, 2014, the federal court ordered California to
reduce its in-state adult institution population to 137.5% of
design capacity by February 28, 2016, as follows:
143% of design bed capacity by June 30, 2014;
141.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2015; and,
137.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2016.
In February of this year the administration reported that as "of
February 11, 2015, 112,993 inmates were housed in the State's 34
adult institutions, which amounts to 136.6% of design bed
capacity, and 8,828 inmates were housed in out-of-state
facilities. This current population is now below the
court-ordered reduction to 137.5% of design bed capacity."(
Defendants' February 2015 Status Report In Response To February
10, 2014 Order, 2:90-cv-00520 KJM DAD PC, 3-Judge Court, Coleman
v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (fn. omitted).
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While significant gains have been made in reducing the prison
population, the state now must stabilize these advances and
demonstrate to the federal court that California has in place
the "durable solution" to prison overcrowding "consistently
demanded" by the court. (Opinion Re: Order Granting in Part and
Denying in Part Defendants' Request For Extension of December
31, 2013 Deadline, NO. 2:90-cv-0520 LKK DAD (PC), 3-Judge Court,
Coleman v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (2-10-14). The Committee's
consideration of bills that may impact the prison population
therefore will be informed by the following questions:
Whether a proposal erodes a measure which has contributed
to reducing the prison population;
Whether a proposal addresses a major area of public safety
or criminal activity for which there is no other
reasonable, appropriate remedy;
Whether a proposal addresses a crime which is directly
dangerous to the physical safety of others for which there
is no other reasonably appropriate sanction;
Whether a proposal corrects a constitutional problem or
legislative drafting error; and
Whether a proposal proposes penalties which are
proportionate, and cannot be achieved through any other
reasonably appropriate remedy.
COMMENTS
1. Stated Need for This Bill
The author states:
SB 629 amends CA Penal Code § 405 (a) & (b) to
eliminate the reference to 'lynching' as used to
define the taking by means of a riot of any person
from the lawful custody of a peace officer. It does
not reduce the penalties associated with this act.
The term "lynching" carries with it cultural
significance and its current usage in code is contrary
to what the vast majority of people understand the
crime of lynching to entail. Lynching is defined in
all dictionaries searched by the author's office as
the practice of killing a person or people by
extrajudicial mob action.
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2. What This Bill Would Do
As noted in the author's statement, the term 'lynching' is
understood as meaning an extrajudicial hanging. This bill would
eliminate any confusion caused by the conflict between the
statutory meaning, the taking of a person from the lawful
custody of a peace officer by means of a riot, and the commonly
accepted meaning of the term. This bill would not change the
penalty.
3. Background
According to History of Lynching in the United States:
The lynching era encompasses roughly the five decades
between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of
the Great Depression. During these years we may
estimate that there were 2,018 separate incidents of
lynching in which at least 2,462 African-American men,
women and children met their deaths in the grasp of
southern mobs, comprised mostly of whites. Although
lynchings and mob killings occurred before 1880,
notably during early Reconstruction when blacks were
enfranchised, radical racism and mob violence peaked
during the 1890s in a surge of terrorism that did not
dissipate until well into the twentieth century (17).
In addition to the punishment of specific criminal
offenders, lynching in the American South had three
entwined functions:
To maintain social order over the black
population through terrorism;
To suppress of eliminate black
competitors for economic, political, or social
rewards; and
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To stabilize the white class structure
and preserve the privileged status of the white
aristocracy (18-19).
Lethal mob violence for seemingly minor infractions of
the caste codes of behavior was more fundamental for
maintaining terroristic social control than punishment
for what would seem to be more serious violations of
the criminal codes (19).<1>
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<1> http://www.umass.edu/complit/aclanet/USLynch.html