BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Mark Leno, Chair S
2009-2010 Regular Session B
3
9
9
SB 399 (Yee)
As Introduced February 26, 2009
Hearing date: April 14, 2009
Penal Code
AA:br
JUVENILE JUSTICE :
RESENTENCING JUVENILE OFFENDERS WHO HAVE BEEN SENTENCED TO
LIFE WITHOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF PAROLE
HISTORY
Source: Human Rights Watch; National Center of Youth Law
Prior Legislation: SB 999 (Yee) - 2008; died on the Senate floor
SB 1223 (Kuehl) - 2004; died on Assembly Suspense
Support: AFSCME, AFL-CIO; California Correctional Peace Officers
Association; California Public Defenders Association;
Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice; Children's Law
Center of Los Angeles; ACLU; Public Counsel Law Center;
American Psychiatric Association; Law Offices of the
Alternate Public Defender for Los Angeles County; Legal
Services for Children; The Everychild Foundation;
California Catholic Conference; John Burton Foundation
for Children Without Homes; American Academy of Child
and Adolescent Psychiatry; Taxpayers for Improving
Public Safety; Bishop of the California-Nevada Annual
Conference of the United Methodist Church; Loyola Law
School Center for Juvenile Law and Policy; Youth Law
Center; Homeboy Industries; Children's Defense Fund;
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageB
Office of Restorative Justice of the Archdioceses of
Los Angeles; Faith Communities for Families and
Children; California Church IMPACT; Post-Conviction
Justice Project at the USC Gould School of Law; Child
Welfare League of America; Books Not Bars; Pacific
Juvenile Defender Center; NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund, Inc.; Youth Justice Coalition;
Children's Advocacy Institute; Legal Services for
Children; United Friends of the Children; Juvenile Law
Center; Pacific Juvenile Defender Center; Lutheran
Office of Public Policy - California; California
Psychiatric Association; California Attorneys for
Criminal Justice; Friends Committee on Legislation;
numerous individuals
Opposition:California District Attorney's Association;
California Peace Officers' Association; California
Police Chiefs Association; Crime Victims United of
California; Crime Victims Action Alliance
KEY ISSUE
SHOULD A procedural mechanism BE CREATED for reviewing the sentence
of a person who was convicted and sentenced to life without the
possibility of parole for a crime committed when the person was
under the age of 18, and for authorizing courts to recall that
sentence, and impose a new sentence, based on specified criteria.
PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to provide a procedural mechanism
for reviewing the sentence of a person who was convicted and
sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for a crime
committed when the person was under the age of 18, and for
authorizing courts to recall that sentence, and impose a new
sentence, based on specified criteria.
Under current law , minors age 14 and older can be subject to
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageC
prosecution in adult criminal court depending upon their alleged
offense and their criminal offense history. (Welfare and
Institutions Code ("WIC") 602(b); 707) Current law contains
three discrete mechanisms for remanding minors to adult criminal
court for prosecution:
Statutory or legislative waiver requires that minors 14 years
of age or older who are alleged to have committed specified
murder and sex offenses be prosecuted in adult criminal court
(i.e., the juvenile court has no jurisdiction over these
cases) (WIC 602 (a));
Prosecutorial waiver gives prosecutors the discretion to file
cases against minors 14 and older, depending upon their age,
alleged offense and offense history, in juvenile or adult
criminal court (WIC 707 (d)); and
Judicial waiver gives courts the discretion to evaluate
whether a minor is unfit for juvenile court based on specified
criteria and applicable rebuttable presumptions. (WIC 707
(a), (b) and (c).)
Under current law , if a prosecution is commenced against a
minor as a criminal case as a "direct file" case - that is,
through either statutory waiver or prosecutorial waiver - and
the minor is convicted of a "direct file" offense, the minor
is required to be sentenced as an adult. (Penal Code
1170.17 (a).) Minors who have been convicted in criminal
court of lesser offenses for which they still would have been
eligible for transfer to adult court may be able to seek a
juvenile disposition instead of a criminal sentence through a
post-conviction fitness proceeding. (Penal Code 1170.17 (b)
and (c).) Minors who are convicted in adult criminal court of
offenses for which they would not have been eligible for adult
court prosecution had a petition first been filed in juvenile
court are subject to a juvenile disposition. (Penal Code
1170.17 (d); 1170.19.)
Under current law , these post-conviction proceedings are not
available to minors who are convicted after they have been
remanded to criminal court from the juvenile court pursuant to
Welfare and Institutions Code Section 707 (a) or (c).
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageD
Existing law provides that notwithstanding any other law the
death penalty shall not be imposed upon any person who is under
the age of 18 at the time of the commission of the crime. The
burden of proof as to the age of such person shall be upon the
defendant. (Penal Code 190.5 (a).)
Existing law provides the penalty for a defendant found guilty
of murder in the first degree, in any case in which one or more
special circumstances enumerated in Section 190.2 or 190.25 has
been found to be true who was 16 years of age or older and under
the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the crime,
shall be in confinement in the state prison for life without the
possibility of parole or, at the discretion of the court, 25
years to life. (Penal Code 190.5 (b).)
Existing law provides for sentencing which includes a term of
imprisonment in the state prison, as specified. Existing law
provides that "(n)othing in this article shall affect any
provision of law that imposes the death penalty, that authorizes
or restricts the granting of probation or suspending the
execution or imposition of sentence, or expressly provides for
imprisonment in the state prison for life." (Penal Code
1170.)
This bill would enact an exception to this provision for persons
who were under 18 years of age at the time of the commission of
an offense for which the defendant was sentenced to imprisonment
for life without the possibility of parole and committed to the
custody of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
("CDCR"), with the following provisions:
10-Year Review
This bill would require the secretary of CDCR or the Board of
Parole Hearings ("Board") to "review the case no later than 90
days before the time that the defendant has served 10 years to
determine if the defendant satisfies three or more of criteria
specified below."
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageE
This bill would require the secretary or the Board to "consider
any documentation relevant to that determination, including
documentation presented by the defendant, and shall issue
written findings not later than 90 days after the date of
review."
Criteria
This bill would provide that, if the secretary or the Board
finds, based on a preponderance of the evidence, that the
defendant satisfies three or more of the following criteria,
that finding shall be forwarded to the sentencing court, which
shall conduct a hearing:
A. The defendant was convicted pursuant to felony murder
or aiding and abetting murder provisions of law.
B. The defendant does not have juvenile felony
adjudications for assault or other felony crimes with a
significant potential for personal harm to victims prior
to the offense for which the sentence is being considered
for recall.
C. The defendant committed the offense with at least one
adult codefendant.
D. Prior to the offense for which the sentence is being
considered for recall, the defendant had insufficient
adult support or supervision and had suffered from
psychological or physical trauma, or significant stress.
E. The defendant suffers from cognitive limitations due
to mental illness, developmental disabilities, or other
factors that did not constitute a defense, but influenced
the defendant's involvement in the offense.
F. The defendant has performed acts that tend to indicate
rehabilitation or the potential for rehabilitation,
including, but not limited to, availing himself or herself
of rehabilitative, educational, or vocational programs, if
those programs have been available at his or her
classification level and facility, using self-study for
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageF
self-improvement, or taking action that demonstrates the
presence of remorse.
G. The defendant has maintained family ties or
connections with others through letter writing, calls, or
visits, or has eliminated contact with individuals outside
of prison who are currently involved with crime.
H. The defendant has had no violent disciplinary
violations in the last five years in which the defendant
was determined to be the aggressor.
Court Discretion to Recall Sentence
This bill would authorize the court to "have the discretion to
recall the sentence and commitment previously ordered and to
resentence the defendant in the same manner as if the defendant
had not previously been sentenced, provided that the new
sentence, if any, is not greater than the initial sentence."
This bill would require that the "discretion of the court shall
be exercised in consideration of the criteria" set forth above.
This bill would require that victims, or victim family members
if the victim is deceased, shall be notified of the resentencing
hearing and shall retain their rights to participate in the
hearing.
This bill would provide that if the sentence is not recalled,
the Board shall conduct the review described above, as
specified, again when the defendant has been committed to the
custody of the department for 15 years, 20 years, and 24 years.
This bill would provide that the final review shall be during
the 24th year of the defendant's sentence.
This bill would provide that in addition to the criteria
described above, "the court may consider any other criteria that
the court deems relevant to its decision, so long as the court
identifies them on the record, provides a statement of reasons
for adopting them, and states why the defendant does or does not
satisfy the criteria."
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageG
Retroactivity
This bill would provide that its provisions shall have
retroactive application.
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION IMPLICATIONS
California continues to face a severe prison overcrowding
crisis. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)
currently has about 170,000 inmates under its jurisdiction. Due
to a lack of traditional housing space available, the department
houses roughly 15,000 inmates in gyms and dayrooms.
California's prison population has increased by 125% (an average
of 4% annually) over the past 20 years, growing from 76,000
inmates to 171,000 inmates, far outpacing the state's population
growth rate for the age cohort with the highest risk of
incarceration.<1>
In December of 2006 plaintiffs in two federal lawsuits against
CDCR sought a court-ordered limit on the prison population
pursuant to the federal Prison Litigation Reform Act. On
February 9, 2009, the three-judge federal court panel issued a
tentative ruling that included the following conclusions with
respect to overcrowding:
No party contests that California's prisons are
overcrowded, however measured, and whether considered
in comparison to prisons in other states or jails
within this state. There are simply too many
prisoners for the existing capacity. The Governor,
the principal defendant, declared a state of emergency
in 2006 because of the "severe overcrowding" in
----------------------
<1> "Between 1987 and 2007, California's population of ages 15
through 44 - the age cohort with the highest risk for
incarceration - grew by an average of less than 1% annually,
which is a pace much slower than the growth in prison
admissions." (2009-2010 Budget Analysis Series, Judicial and
Criminal Justice, Legislative Analyst's Office (January 30,
2009).)
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageH
California's prisons, which has caused "substantial
risk to the health and safety of the men and women who
work inside these prisons and the inmates housed in
them." . . . A state appellate court upheld the
Governor's proclamation, holding that the evidence
supported the existence of conditions of "extreme
peril to the safety of persons and property."
(citation omitted) The Governor's declaration of the
state of emergency remains in effect to this day.
. . . the evidence is compelling that there is no
relief other than a prisoner release order that will
remedy the unconstitutional prison conditions.
. . .
Although the evidence may be less than perfectly
clear, it appears to the Court that in order to
alleviate the constitutional violations California's
inmate population must be reduced to at most 120% to
145% of design capacity, with some institutions or
clinical programs at or below 100%. We caution the
parties, however, that these are not firm figures and
that the Court reserves the right - until its final
ruling - to determine that a higher or lower figure is
appropriate in general or in particular types of
facilities.
. . .
Under the PLRA, any prisoner release order that we
issue will be narrowly drawn, extend no further than
necessary to correct the violation of constitutional
rights, and be the least intrusive means necessary to
correct the violation of those rights. For this
reason, it is our present intention to adopt an order
requiring the State to develop a plan to reduce the
prison population to 120% or 145% of the prison's
design capacity (or somewhere in between) within a
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageI
period of two or three years.<2>
The final outcome of the panel's tentative decision, as well as
any appeal that may be in response to the panel's final
decision, is unknown at the time of this writing.
This bill does not appear to aggravate the prison overcrowding
crisis outlined above.
COMMENTS
1. Stated Need for This Bill
The author states in part:
The "life without parole" sentence for youth is not
applied fairly: The sentence is reserved for the
worst, most heinous criminals, but is often given to
kids who didn't even kill anyone. Statistics: 59% of
youth sentenced to LWOP are first-time offenders: they
have no criminal history. 45% of the youth sentenced
to life in prison did not perform the murder they were
convicted of.
Many youth sentenced to life-without-parole (LWOP)
acted with adults at the time of their crimes;
however, in many cases the youth was sentenced to a
worse penalty than the adult codefendant/s, even when
the youth's crimes were the same or lesser than the
adult's. . . . Statistics: 70% of the youth acted
under the influence of adults. In 56% of these cases,
the youth received a higher sentence than the adult/s,
even when the youth's crimes were equal or less.
----------------------
<2> Three Judge Court Tentative Ruling, Coleman v.
Schwarzenegger, Plata v. Schwarzenegger, in the United States
District Courts for the Eastern District of California and the
Northern District of California United States District Court
composed of three judges pursuant to Section 2284, Title 28
United States Code (Feb. 9, 2009).
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageJ
. . . Unsurprisingly, over 75% of the youth
sentenced to life-without-parole acted within a group
at the time of their crime.
When life-without-parole was adopted as a possible
sentence for minors in 1990, much less was known about
brain science than we now know. It is now widely
established that the adolescent brain has not yet
fully developed the ability to comprehend consequences
and control impulses. . . .
The life-without-parole sentence is not applied fairly
between ethnic groups: Latinos and blacks are given
the sentence at a much higher rate than whites, even
after differing crime rates between the groups are
factored in, again revealing weaknesses in our
existing sentencing system.
. . .
The U.S. is the only country in the
world that sentences kids to
life-without-parole.
Many U.S. states have already banned
the use of the life-without-parole sentence for
youth.
The sentence has no deterrent effect on
crime.
. . .
. . . (T)his Act creates specific criteria and an
intense, three-part review process that would result
in the possibility of a lesser sentence for those
offenders whose crimes were less than their sentence
might have warranted and who have proven themselves to
have changed as adults.
2. Convicted Juveniles in State Institutions
The number of adult inmates currently in prison who were
convicted as minors is not known. According to data from the
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageK
Division of Juvenile Justice, as of December 31, 2008, there
were 152 minors convicted in adult court housed in facilities
operated by DJJ.
According to the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, nationwide data indicates the number of
delinquency cases judicially waived to criminal court grew 70%
between 1985 and 1994 and then declined 54% through 2000.
Between 2001 and 2005, the number of judicially waived
delinquency cases increased 7%.<3> In 2007, 583 minors were
reported to the Department of Justice as having been convicted
in adult criminal court; of those, 302 were sentenced to prison
or the Division of Juvenile Facilities.<4>
3. What This Bill Would Do
As explained in detail above, this bill would provide a court
procedure to review a life without parole sentence of persons
who were minors at the time of their offense, with the following
key features:
Review Periods
First review no later than 90 days before the time that
the defendant has served 10 years;
If the sentence is not recalled, another review is
required again when the defendant has been committed to the
custody of the department for 15 years, 20 years, and 24
years (the final review).
Criteria; court hearing
The bill sets forth nine specified criteria, three of
which must be satisfied based on a preponderance of the
evidence.
--------------------------
<3> See online Statistical Briefing Book, Juveniles in Court
(http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ojstatbb/njcda/pdf/jcs2005.pdf.)
<4> See online Juvenile Justice in California 2007
(http://ag.ca.gov/cjsc/publications/misc/jj07/preface.pdf.)
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageL
If this standard is met, that standard is required to be
forwarded to a sentencing court, and the court is required
to conduct a hearing.
Court Discretion to Recall Sentence
Courts would be authorized but not required to recall a
sentence and commitment previously ordered and to
resentence the defendant in the same manner as if the
defendant had not previously been sentenced, provided that
the new sentence, if any, is not greater than the initial
sentence.
Courts would exercise its discretion using the same
criteria used by CDCR.
Victim notification of resentencing hearing would be
required, and their right to participate in the hearing
specified.
Retroactivity
The bill's provisions would be expressly retroactive.
4. Trying Juveniles in Adult Court
Throughout the 1990s, California's juvenile law was altered to
expand the scope of juvenile offenders who would be eligible for
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageM
prosecution in adult criminal court.<5> These changes
culminated with the passage of Proposition 21 on March 7, 2000,
which expanded the kinds of juvenile cases outside the scope of
the juvenile court (thus requiring prosecution in criminal
court), and made it procedurally easier for prosecutors to
pursue criminal charges against minors 14 years of age and older
in criminal court.<6>
The movement to prosecute a broader range of juvenile offenses
in criminal court has been a national phenomenon. As explained
in one legal commentary:
For over two decades, legislatures across the
nation have enacted a variety of laws and policies
to criminalize delinquency by relocating
adolescent offenders from the juvenile to the
adult court. More recently, the U.S. Senate
passed legislation to "get tough" on juvenile
crime by promoting the transfer of adolescents to
criminal court, and providing funds to facilitate
state efforts to do the same. This legislation
threatens to accelerate a trend that began with
the passage of New York State's Juvenile Offender
Law in 1978 and continues today even as juvenile
crime rates have fallen dramatically. Since 1990,
nearly every state and the federal system have
expanded the use of adult adjudication and
punishment for adolescent offenders. Some states
have expanded the number of cases eligible for
judicial waiver, and still others have reassigned
--------------------
<5> See, e.g., AB 560 (Peace) (Ch. 453, Stats. 1994) (lowered
the minimum age at which minors would be eligible for
prosecution in adult court from age 16 to 14); SB 334 (Alpert)
(Ch. 996, Stats. 1999) (removed juvenile court discretion for
special circumstance murder or sex crimes alleged to be
committed by a minor 16 or older who has felony priors, as
specified).
<6> These mechanisms are described above, in the Purpose
section of this analysis, and are set forth in Welfare and
Institutions Code 602 (b) and 707.
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageN
the burden of proof for waiver hearings from the
prosecutor (seeking to waive a case to criminal
court) to the defense counsel (seeking to deny
waiver). Some state legislatures have excluded
specific offenses from juvenile court
jurisdiction. Other states permit prosecutorial
choice of forum between concurrent
jurisdictions.<7>
5. Adolescent Development and Legal Culpability
The creation of the modern juvenile court, now over 100 years
ago, was rooted in the idea that adolescents, who are not fully
developed or mature, are less culpable than adults.<8> As
explained below, this viewpoint is not completely compatible
with the "adult crime for adult time" philosophy that emerged in
the 1990s.
---------------------------
<7> Symposium: Children, Crime, and Consequences: Juvenile
Justice in America: Punishment, Proportionality, and
Jurisdictional Transfer of Adolescent Offenders: A Test of the
Leniency Gap Hypothesis (Aaron Kupchik, Jeffrey Fagan, and Akiva
Liberman) (14 Stan. L. & Pol'y Rev 57 (2003) (footnotes
omitted).)
<8> See Jill M. Ward, Deterrence's Difficulty Magnified: The
Importance of Adolescent Development in Assessing the Deterrence
Value of Transferring Juveniles to Adult Court, 7 UC Davis Juv.
L. & Pol'y 253, 257 (Summer 2003) ("Embracing the recognition
that children are different from adults, the first separate
court for juveniles was established in the United States in
1899. The court's key principles espoused the following four
ideas: (1) children have different needs than adults and need
adult protection and guidance; (2) children have constitutional
human rights and need adult involvement to ensure those rights;
(3) almost all children can be rehabilitated; and (4) children
are everyone's responsibility. This rehabilitative approach to
the juvenile court grew rapidly, and by 1925, forty-six states,
three territories and the District of Columbia had created
separate juvenile courts." (footnotes omitted))
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageO
The common law assumed that adolescents are less
culpable than adults, and the juvenile court
institutionalized this notion both
jurisprudentially and statutorily. That is, the
juvenile court offered a punishment discount for
adolescents punished as juveniles, relative to the
punishment given to adults. This discount is
rooted in the belief that serious crimes committed
by young offenders may reflect developmental
deficiencies in autonomy and social judgment,
suggesting a reduction in their culpability and,
in turn, their punishment liability. . . .
Recent developments in transfer law often express
the preference of penal proportionality over the
common law assumptions of reduced culpability of
adolescent offenders. In this view, the
traditional preoccupation with rehabilitation in
the juvenile court, with its limitations on
punishment opportunities, deprecates the moral
seriousness of crimes and offers inadequate
retribution. Proponents of harsher punishments
for adolescents argue that punishments that are
disproportionately lenient compared to the
severity of the adjudicated offense also undermine
both the specific and general deterrent effects of
legal sanctions.
These developments reflect the presumption in
modern juvenile justice law that those who commit
crimes and are remanded to the criminal court, or
even those who are charged with such crimes, are
fully culpable for their acts. This legal
threshold clashes with emerging empirical evidence
on the immaturity of adolescents with respect to
both their ability to make informed and nuanced
judgments about their behavior, as well as their
moral development. By ignoring these indicia of
reduced culpability, the new transfer or waiver
policies offend the common law doctrine of
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageP
incapacity.<9>
Researchers in the science of human development, however,
generally agree that from a developmental standpoint, an
adolescent is not an adult.
(More)
---------------------------
<9> Id.
The evidence now is strong that the brain does not
cease to mature until the early 20s in those
relevant parts that govern impulsivity, judgment,
planning for the future, foresight of
consequences, and other characteristics that make
people morally culpable . . . Indeed, age 21 or
22 would be closer to the "biological" age of
maturity.<10>
Some scholars argue that the unique nature of adolescent
development affect considerations of both culpability and
deterrence when measuring the value and suitability of imposing
adult criminal sanctions on juveniles.
The culpability analysis of juvenile impulsiveness
and risk-taking implicitly embraces the
developmental notion that some forms of adolescent
behavior are the result of a not yet fully formed
ability to control impulses. In effect, young
people do not have the same capacity for
self-control as adults and this should be
considered a mitigating factor when assessing
culpability. Similarly, the proclivity of
adolescents to take risks and act on a whim skews
the traditional deterrence calculus for the
adolescent actor. Adolescents are not likely to
recognize all possible options and therefore,
their preference prioritization may be completely
tilted toward outcomes that they expect will
provide immediate gratification but that do not
actually maximize their utility.<11>
IS THE SENTENCE REVIEW MECHANISM THIS BILL PROPOSES CONSISTENT
---------------------------
<10> Adolescent Brain Development and Legal Culpability,
American Bar Assn. Criminal Justice Section, Juvenile Justice
Center (Winter 2003), quoting Dr. Ruben C. Gur,
neuropsychologist and Professor at the University of
Pennsylvania.
<11> Ward, supra, note 6, at 267 (footnotes omitted).
(More)
SB 399 (Yee)
PageR
WITH RECENT RESEARCH CONCERNING ADOLESCENT BRAIN AND BEHAVIORAL
DEVELOPMENT?
IF ADOLESCENTS HAVE A DIMINISHED CAPACITY FOR CULPABILITY
BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT YET SOCIALLY AND BIOLOGICALLY DEVELOPED,
AND IF AS A RESULT OF THESE LIMITATIONS THERE IS LITTLE
DETERRENCE VALUE IN IMPOSING UNMITIGATED ADULT SENTENCES ON
ADOLESCENTS WHO HAVE BEEN CONVICTED IN CRIMINAL COURT, SHOULD
YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS WHO ALREADY HAVE SERVED LENGTHY PRISON
SENTENCES HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE THEIR SENTENCES REVIEWED
BY COURT?
6. Opposition
Opponents argue that existing law concerning sentencing minors
who have been convicted of extremely serious offenses is
adequate, and that the provisions of this bill are flawed. The
California District Attorneys Association submits:
Existing law properly recognizes the fact that there
are juveniles who commit special circumstances murder
and that LWOP is an appropriate sentence in many, if
not most, of those cases. At the same time, the
statute acknowledges the possibility of a rare
exception and grants judicial discretion to impose a
lesser sentence of 25 years to life. We agree with
the propriety of existing law in this regard and
therefore oppose any effort, whether overt or veiled,
to substantially weaken the statutory response to
special circumstances murder committed by specified
juveniles.
. . . (T)he bill lists a number of criteria, three or
more of which must be satisfied by an inmate in order
for him or her to enjoy the benefit of a potentially
decreased sentences. These criteria set the bar so
low that an inmate who (1) prior to the crime, had
insufficient adult support or supervision and had
suffered from significant stress, (2) availed himself
SB 399 (Yee)
PageS
or herself of education or vocational programs while
incarcerated, and (3) maintained family connections
through phone calls or visits, would be entitled to a
mandatory court hearing in which the sentencing court
would consider reducing the inmate's sentence. While
the bill includes other more pertinent criteria such
as the nature of the crime and the criminal history of
the offender, there is no requirement that those
criteria actually be satisfied in order to trigger the
hearing.
. . . The plain language would seem to allow (the
initial review) at any point in the inmate's sentence
until he or she has served nine years and nine months.
. . .
IS EXISTING LAW, WHICH PROVIDES JUDICIAL DISCRETION TO
IMPOSE A LESSER SENTENCE THAN LWOP, ADEQUATE?
SHOULD THE CRITERIA AND THEIR APPLICATION PROPOSED BY
THIS BILL BE TIGHTENED?
SHOULD THE BILL'S LANGUAGE CONCERNING WHEN THE FIRST
REVIEW OCCURS BE TIGHTENED?
***************