Yesterday I was on KPCC's Air Talk with Larry Mantle. The program page with audio is here. The topic of discussion was Gov. Brown's initiative to make every convicted felon eligible for parole at the completion of the base term for the present offense, effectively giving the parole board the power to wipe out all sentence enhancements imposed for prior convictions, no matter how many or how violent.
As usual, the other guest was someone who disagreed with me, and as usual Mr. Mantle was quite evenhanded in moderating.
The most interesting moment occurred during a call-in. The caller frankly admitted that she had gone to prison for manufacturing drugs for sale, and after getting out she returned to the drug trade. Even so, she insisted it was totally unfair that she got a sentence enhancement for the prior. I was quite taken aback. Judge for yourself whether I had a good answer.
As usual, the other guest was someone who disagreed with me, and as usual Mr. Mantle was quite evenhanded in moderating.
The most interesting moment occurred during a call-in. The caller frankly admitted that she had gone to prison for manufacturing drugs for sale, and after getting out she returned to the drug trade. Even so, she insisted it was totally unfair that she got a sentence enhancement for the prior. I was quite taken aback. Judge for yourself whether I had a good answer.
The adjustments to whether a DA can direct file are, in my opinion, cover for the radical part of this initiative which is constituionalizing generous credits to everyone and parole consideration for so called non-violent offenders who are in reality anything but.
The proposal will mandate the consideration of parole substantially earlier than imposed for the most serious of offenders who otherwise qualify because it ignores consecutive sentences as well as conduct and criminal history enhancements. California already gives two thirds off for every felony crime after the first and this propsal would allow parole before a defendant served any additional time for multiple crimes or time based upon crime characteristics or criminal history. In others words it will allow release regardless of whether the crime was enhanced because of victimizing a elder or disabled person and your respective of a lengthy criminal history, or for multiple victims.
Additionally and the most insidious portion of the propsal is that it would allow CDCR to grant credits to murderers, rapists and violent felons serving minimum parole eligibility terms. This will permit parole consideration much much earlier then the law currently allows. The credits provision is not limited to non-violent offenders. This is the real goal here, but they want to call it a juvenile justice and non-violent offender proposal.
This proposal was written in such a way to maximize Jerry Brown's criminal justice reform sycophants ability to mislead the public as to the actual consequences of releasing violent offenders much earlier then the law currently permits.
Finally, if anyone thinks for a moment that when the parole board starts getting flooded with thousands of hearings annually that there won't be a desire to parole quickly as many as possible they don't understand how government operates.
"This proposal was written in such a way to maximize Jerry Brown's criminal justice reform sycophants ability to mislead the public as to the actual consequences of releasing violent offenders much earlier then the law currently permits."
Nailed it.
Prop 47 got peddled with a bunch of lies, and this, as you correctly point out, is to facilitate and obscure the next batch.