Stealth Sentencing Reform: The legislative process is supposed to provide the public and interest groups with a transparent process for reviewing proposed changes in the law. Bills are published for public view and go through at least two committee hearings in each house where supporters and opponents can testify about their concerns and recommend amendments. For bills making the most significant changes in the law, the media is supposed to provide the public with objective reports on what it is intended to do and its impact on the public. California doesn't always do it that way. AB109, the Legislature's massive 2011 "Public Safety Realignment" law, passed both houses on straight party line votes with zero committee hearings before the Governor signed it into law.
A year and a half later the Stanford Criminal Justice Center characterized
AB109 as "the most sweeping correctional experiment in recent
history." This year, Michelle Hanisee, head of the LA Deputy District
Attorneys Association reports
on AB1810, a budget trailer bill, amended to allow diverting or
dismissing charges for any crime (including murder) when the accused can
convince a judge that he has mental health problems that
played a major role in his criminal behavior. This massive change in law
was slipped into the bill late in the process to avoid review. The
purpose of
trailer bills is supposed to be to implement provisions of the budget
bill, not to write substantive new policy. However, as columnist George Skelton explained last
year, these trailer bills are "created in the dark without much
legislative or public scrutiny" and "mostly used now by Democrats for
slipping through touchy new policy."
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