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(CALIFORNIA GLOBE) – A controversial bill that would have given early release to some prisoners serving life without parole was officially ended by legislative Democrats on Thursday, pulling the bill because of growing pressure from pressure from Republican and moderate Democrat lawmakers, victims’ rights groups, law enforcement, and the public.
Senate Bill 94, authored by Senator Dave Cortese (D-Los Gatos), would have specifically authorized an individual serving a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for a conviction in which one or more special circumstances were found to be true to petition for recall and resentencing if the offense occurred before June 5, 1990, and the individual had served at least 25 years in custody.
SB 94 would not have allowed parole in several circumstances, including if the individual was convicted of first degree murder of a peace officer. The bill would have also authorized the court to modify the petitioner’s sentence to impose a lesser sentence and apply any changes in law that reduce sentences or provide for judicial discretion, or to vacate the petitioner’s conviction and impose judgment on a lesser included offense and require a court to consider and afford great weight to evidence offered by the petitioner to prove that specified mitigating circumstances are present.
SB 94 proved to be a divisive bill in Sacramento last year. Most Republican lawmakers and a few Democrats opposed the bill, but overwhelming Democratic support kept the bill rising through to Assembly subcommittees. However, support for the bill waned in August and September, leading lawmakers to shelve it in the inactive file in September 2023. For nearly a year, most in Sacramento thought that the bill was dead, especially because it came into odds against the slew of ‘tougher on crime’ bills that were introduced earlier in the year and kept SB 94 from being reactivated.
However, the bill was reactivated earlier this month, surprising most lawmakers as they had assumed the bill was dead. Angered at the eleventh hour attempt at passing it without it being given the proper amount of time for analyzation and debate, Republicans and some moderate Democrats in the legislature quickly rallied against the bill, with many victims, victims families, and law enforcement groups speaking out against the bill and bringing it to the general public’s attention. To the ire of bill supporters, the effort worked, as public sentiment rapidly shifted against the bill as well. While the votes were still possibly there, bill supporters saw the growing backlash and, on Thursday, withdrew the bill, officially ending SB 94.
