A new California bill would let some of the state’s worst criminals, murderers and serial rapists walk out of prison despite sentences of death or life without parole.
The bill was written by state Sen. Dave Cortese and co-authors, including San Francisco’s Sen. Scott Wiener, who wrote a prior bill that decreased the punishment for knowingly infecting someone with HIV.
It would let some of the state’s worst killers and rapists go free after serving 20 years, despite far longer sentences.
“This bill would authorize an individual sentenced to death or 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 has served at least 20 years in custody,” the legislation reads. “The bill would authorize 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.”
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The bill was referred to the state Senate’s Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.
“The people supporting this should really be ashamed of themselves,” said Jonathan Hatami, a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles who is running to replace the county’s current DA, George Gascon. “I’m a Democrat, and I’m 100% against this. I’m also a dad and a caring human being.”
The bill’s primary impact would be beneficial to the worst of the worst, he said: murderers who were also convicted of additional special circumstance allegations, and serial rapists.
“SB 94 is another slap in the face to victims and their families,” said Kathy Cady, a California lawyer and former prosecutor. She argued that the proposal would “violate the will of the People,” and in particular, Marsy’s Law, the Victims’ Bill of Rights Act.
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That law, which guarantees victims’ rights, she explained, provides that: “Victims of crime are entitled to finality in their criminal cases. Lengthy appeals and other post-judgment proceedings that challenge criminal convictions, frequent and difficult parole hearings that threaten to release criminal offenders, and the ongoing threat that the sentences of criminal wrongdoers will be reduced, prolong the suffering of crime victims for many years after the crimes themselves have been perpetrated. This prolonged suffering of crime victims and their families must come to an end.’”
Cady said the new bill is both unconstitutional and a violation of victims’ rights, which include a right to be heard at sentencing — especially if resentencing is done by stipulation or in secret.
Last year, Gascon’s office pushed to transfer a convicted murderer named Scott Forrest Collins off of death row. He had kidnapped and murdered construction worker Fred Rose on his lunch break, stealing his car and $200. Collins’ rap sheet already included throwing a Molotov cocktail, stabbing a man in the back and carjacking a woman, and he was out on parole for another robbery when he murdered Rose, a 41-year-old father of three.
Cady represented Rose’s family, who opposed his removal from death row.
Gascon’s special adviser at the time, Alex Bastian, argued that the progressive prosecutor was not seeking Collins’ release, just to have him resentenced to life without parole.
“We’re not asking for his release, we’re asking that his sentence be commuted to life without the possibility of parole,” he told Fox News Digital. “That is something that is, I think, important to note. We are not asking that he be resentenced to something that would put him in front of a parole board.”
SB 94 would give a crack at freedom to both those on death row and serving life without parole. Collins, after being removed from death row, died in custody earlier this year.
In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered a moratorium on executions in California, but more than 600 inmates remain on death row.
Fox News’ Bill Melugin contributed to this report.
