{"id":5426,"date":"2017-01-27T08:50:17","date_gmt":"2017-01-27T13:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=5426"},"modified":"2017-01-27T08:50:17","modified_gmt":"2017-01-27T13:50:17","slug":"violent-crime-californias-new-parole-law-definition-murky-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2017\/01\/27\/violent-crime-californias-new-parole-law-definition-murky-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a ‘violent crime’? For California’s new parole law, the definition is murky\u2014 and it matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Luster, the\u00a0great grandson of cosmetics magnate Max Factor, drew global\u00a0attention in the early 2000s<\/a> when, after being\u00a0accused of rape, he jumped his $1-million bail and was later captured in Mexico by a bounty hunter on TV.<\/p>\n

Ventura County\u00a0prosecutors said\u00a0he drugged three women and videotaped the assaults, and\u00a0a jury\u00a0convicted him of 86 counts of poisoning, sexual battery and rape of an unconscious or intoxicated person. But with\u00a0none of his offenses listed among the 23 crimes that California considers \u201cviolent\u201d felonies in its penal code<\/a>,\u00a0does the state consider him a violent felon?<\/p>\n

As California undergoes the largest overhaul of prison parole in a generation, determining\u00a0which criminals are\u00a0violent\u00a0in the eyes of the state has taken on a new urgency among some lawmakers and law enforcement officials who argue it\u2019s time to revisit how\u00a0 \u201cviolent crime\u201d is legally defined.<\/p>\n

Gov. Jerry Brown<\/a>\u2019s Proposition 57, which voters overwhelmingly approved in November, continues a statewide\u00a0effort to increase rehabilitation services and decrease the prison population. Among its provisions, the initiative\u00a0will give new power to\u00a0the state parole board to consider the early release of prisoners who have served the full term of their primary sentences, and whose crimes are not designated as \u201cviolent\u201d under the California penal code.<\/p>\n

But since the early days of the ballot measure\u00a0campaign, debate has brewed over just who the law will benefit, with prosecutors arguing the state\u2019s short and porous violent felony list could allow\u00a0dangerous inmates like Luster\u00a0to walk free. Now the debate has moved to the state Capitol, as some lawmakers hope\u00a0to expand the number of the crimes outlined in the\u00a0penal code.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Patricia\u00a0Bates\u00a0(R-Laguna Niguel), who filed a bill to reclassify more than 20 offenses\u00a0as violent felonies, said there must be a public discussion about the criminal charges she is proposing to add to the list,\u00a0such as inflicting injury on a child or assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many of them that really need a second thought,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you put yourself in the position of a victim in any one of those crimes, you will say, \u2018That was violent because that affected me physically and emotionally.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Corrections officials have until October to develop the most\u00a0controversial details of Proposition 57: a set of regulations to expand prison programs that offer incentives for good behavior and\u00a0participation in rehabilitation, and\u00a0that\u00a0govern who is\u00a0eligible\u00a0for early parole and when.<\/p>\n

In a budget proposal unveiled this month<\/a>, Brown excluded\u00a0all sex offenders from early parole consideration, whether their crimes were designated as \u201cviolent\u201d or not. Law enforcement officials called it\u00a0an appropriate response to concerns over cases such as Luster\u2019s.<\/p>\n

But lawmakers and prosecutors remain intent\u00a0on expanding the violent felony list, saying\u00a0sex offender exemptions from early parole eligibility\u00a0can be challenged in court, while the violent felony penal code\u00a0will still be used to determine \u2014 and limit \u2014 how much credit offenders receive for following the rules and attending counseling\u00a0behind bars.<\/p>\n

The violent felony penal code\u00a0dates to 1976 and has been expanded over the years through piecemeal legislation and voter initiatives. It includes obvious violent crimes like murder and sexual abuse of a child. But it\u00a0excludes others,\u00a0such as some rape crimes\u00a0and domestic violence.<\/p>\n

Debate over the offenses on the list has occurred since its inception. Lawmakers\u00a0\u201cdidn\u2019t want to add everything conceivable,\u201d\u00a0said San Mateo Dist. Atty. Steve Wagstaffe, who helped negotiate the penal code 40 years ago. \u201cThere was\u00a0lot of give and take in Sacramento.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest major changes\u00a0came in 2000, when a juvenile punishment ballot measure backed by district attorneys revised the list of crimes and made them count as \u201cstrikes\u201d under the state\u2019s three strikes law, subjecting\u00a0defendants with previous violent or serious offenses to longer prison sentences.<\/p>\n

That ballot measure, Proposition 21, also made it harder to change the violent felony penal code by requiring any bill seeking to do so to receive a two-thirds majority vote in each house.<\/p>\n

But in recent years, bills seeking to add more crimes to the code have died at the Capitol, as California has grappled with prison overcrowding and with finding a permanent solution to a\u00a0federal court-ordered cap on its\u00a0inmate population.<\/p>\n

That might change this legislative session,\u00a0as the list\u00a0\u201chas taken on a whole new meaning under Prop. 57,\u201d said Wagstaffe, president of the California District Attorneys Assn.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has a whole new purpose,\u201d he said. \u201cNow it will help determine whether you are eligible for early release, and that\u2019s what is causing this new discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most heated discussion has been over sex offenders. In August, Brown called out a Fresno County sheriff\u00a0over what he termed\u00a0a \u201cmalicious\u201d campaign mailer<\/a>\u00a0for Proposition 57, which featured\u00a0Luster\u2019s case and claimed he would be eligible for early release.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the case of former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner stirred\u00a0worldwide rage<\/a>\u00a0over the loopholes in punishment for rape and sexual assault. At least three\u00a0bills filed this session seek to expand\u00a0the list of sex crimes in the violent felony penal code.<\/p>\n

A bipartisan proposal\u00a0filed by Assemblywomen Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore)\u00a0and Lorena Gonzalez\u00a0(D-San Diego)\u00a0would add to the list\u00a0all forms of rape, spousal rape, sodomy, oral copulation and sexual penetration committed against a victim incapable of consent, including those victims who are intoxicated or mentally ill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bates\u2019 bill also would revise the list\u00a0to include certain rape crimes\u00a0and human trafficking involving minors, but also seeks to reclassify crimes including\u00a0vehicular manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon and solicitation of murder. Assemblyman\u00a0Kevin\u00a0Kiley (R-Roseville) would add child abduction for prostitution to the list\u00a0in addition to crimes against the elderly and cruelty to animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is\u00a0particularly important to do this now,\u201d Kiley said. \u201cThe initiative\u00a0passed, and its language suggested that it applies to only nonviolent offenders. But the\u00a0people who have been convicted of the type of crimes in my bill would be considered nonviolent, even though common sense shows they are acting out violence against their victims.\u201d<\/p>\n

But not everyone is in support of expanding the list. Even when debate over the Turner case was at its peak last year, some groups abstained from taking sides on sexual assault legislation, saying tougher\u00a0sentencing laws have historically taken a toll on communities of color<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among those organizations remaining neutral on changing the penal code\u00a0is the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, which says it wants to hold offenders accountable, but has been taking a closer look at other forms of intervention and rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe keep hearing from survivors that criminal legal sanctions are not necessarily what they want,\u201d said Jacquie Marroquin, the organization\u2019s director of programs. \u201cThey tell us: \u2018We don\u2019t want to break apart our families. We want the abuse to stop.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

By\u00a0\u00a0 Jazmine Ulloa <\/a><\/span>Contact Reporter<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Source latimes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Luster, the\u00a0great grandson of cosmetics magnate Max Factor, drew global\u00a0attention in the early 2000s when, after being\u00a0accused of rape, he jumped his $1-million bail and was later captured in Mexico by a bounty hunter […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":5428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[177,2724,2723],"class_list":{"0":"post-5426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-parole-law","11":"tag-violent-crime","12":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5429,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5426\/revisions\/5429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}