California’s legislature advanced Senate Bill 94 last week, which would allow California prison inmates serving a sentence of life without parole (LWOP) to petition for re-sentencing if the offense occurred before June 5, 1990, and they have completed at least 25 years of their sentence.
“I’d like to say I am shocked Senate Bill 94 passed out of the Democrat-controlled Assembly Appropriations Committee, but I’m not,”Jessica Millan Patterson, chair of the California Republican Party, said. “California Democrats continue to send a crystal-clear message to all Californians: they would rather protect violent murderers than focus their efforts on true public safety and protecting victims.”
Those convicted of first-degree murder of a police officer would be exempt and those who were re-sentenced would have the opportunity to someday go in front of a parole board, which could deny them release.
From Fox News:
Assemblyman Bill Essayli, a Republican and former federal prosecutor, said those sentenced for heinous crimes should serve their full prison term, even if that's life without the possibility of parole. "Killing two individuals with aggravating circumstances isn't enough to justify a LWOP sentence? Being an accomplice to a mass murderer isn't?," he asked. "Killing a peace officer is sufficiently heinous, but killing a firefighter or other public official isn't? These exclusions are purely political."
