By Don Thompson
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Jerry Brown is asking voters to change California’s sentencing laws in Tuesday’s election by giving corrections officials more say in when criminals are released and stripping prosecutors of the power to decide when juveniles should be tried as adults.
Proposition 57 would restore balance to a legal code that has become overburdened with get-tough policies, the Democratic governor said.
Law enforcement officials object that the initiative gives bureaucrats too much power to overrule judges.
The measure would allow inmates who are deemed nonviolent to seek earlier parole hearings, although that definition under California law would exclude only those convicted of about two dozen crimes such as murder and kidnapping.
Nonviolent inmates could seek parole after completing the prison term for their primary offense, without enhancements that can add years to sentences for things like being a repeat offender or gang member or using a gun during the crime.
Corrections officials would also be able to give earlier release credits even to inmates convicted of violent crimes, if they complete classes and treatment programs.
The initiative would also reverse voters’ decision in 2000 to let prosecutors decide if juveniles as young as 14 should be tried in adult court. Instead, judges would decide after a hearing.
The measures are needed to keep the state’s prison population below the level set by federal judges, Brown said. But he also is trying to restore flexibility he says the state has lacked since he signed California’s current sentencing law in 1977 when he was first governor.
“The problems that I create, I can clean up,” Brown said.
Current law lets judges instead of parole boards determine when most convicts should be released, but Brown said judges are often bound by mandatory minimum sentences, sentencing enhancements and myriad other laws imposed by state lawmakers and voters.
Law enforcement officials said the measure is too much, too soon, given the recent increase in crime rates and several changes that already substantially reduced the state prison population.
Lower-level felons now serve their sentences in county lockups instead of state penitentiaries under a 2011 law. California voters softened the “three strikes” career criminal law in 2012 and lowered penalties for some drug and property crimes in 2014.
“It’s Russian roulette with the public safety,” Merced County District Attorney Larry Morse said of the latest proposal, speaking on behalf of the California District Attorneys Association that opposes the initiative. “It’s too big a risk.”