SACRAMENTO (California) –
The California Supreme Court decided Monday unanimously that correctional authorities are not required to consider early release for violent offenders, even if their main violation is nonviolent under state law.
Inmates’ latest effort to widen the applicability of an initiative championed by former Gov. Jerry Brown and supported by almost two-thirds of voters in 2016 resulted in the verdict.
The supreme court, on the other hand, found that correctional officials acted correctly when they drafted rules that “remove from nonviolent offender early parole consideration any person who is presently serving a term of sentence for a ‘violent offense.'”
The justices said that this includes those doing time for a mix of violent and nonviolent crimes.
On behalf of the court, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said, “We find the constitutional phrasing (of the ballot initiative) difficult in reaching our verdict.”
“The ballot papers demonstrate that the voters meant to exclude any offender presently serving a sentence for a violent offense from consideration for early release, regardless of whether such an inmate had also been convicted of a nonviolent felony,” the judges agreed with the prisons department.
The agency contended that the fullest reading of the lower court’s ruling to the contrary would have mandated early consideration of release for the great majority of convicts, who are serving time for both violent and nonviolent offences.
As an attempt to foster rehabilitation and prevent mass imprisonment, Proposition 57 permits most offenders to apply for early release. Individual prior releases may still be denied by parole boards.
Brown and other proponents, on the other hand, told voters that it would only apply to nonviolent felons and not to those convicted of sex crimes.
“No one expected this rule to apply to those who had been convicted of a violent crime.” And it would be insane to apply an exceedingly literal meaning of the (ballot) wording in a manner that no one on either side expected,” said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which filed a friend of the court brief opposing such a sweeping interpretation.
The Supreme Court’s judgment overruled an appeals court decision that would have rendered the prisons department’s rule illegal, allowing offenders serving time for any violent crime, even if it was not their principal charge, to be released.
The Supreme Court’s decision affirmed four previous appellate decisions that backed the department’s policy.
Murder, voluntary manslaughter, attempted murder, abduction, assaults, arson, robbery, and extortion are all included under California’s legal definition of violent crimes, which covers around a half-dozen of the most heinous offenses.
Inmate Mohammad Mohammad, now 44, filed the case after pleading no contest to nine charges of second-degree robbery, which are considered severe felonies, and six counts of receiving stolen goods, which are considered nonviolent offenses, in 2012.
The court in Los Angeles County identified one of the property charges as his primary offense but ordered that the other sentences be served concurrently, giving Mohammad a total term of 29 years in jail.
Mohammad contended that he should be considered for release after serving just three years for the property offense under the plain meaning of Proposition 57, and the appeals court agreed.
Heather MacKay, his attorney, expressed disappointment but said she could pursue a fresh appeal in county superior court based on some of the concerns left unanswered by Monday’s judgment.
“They left open the prospect (for future judicial interpretation) that Mr. Mohammad and other people with dual crimes may qualify for early release after serving the violent felony sections of their sentences,” she added.
The judges’ judgment on Monday contrasted with their prior ruling, which expanded the scope of sex offenders eligible for parole.
They determined a year earlier that convicts convicted of nonviolent sex offenses may be eligible for early parole consideration under the same ballot measure’s clear wording.
“In this case, by contrast, the ballot materials offer substantially greater support for the Department’s position,” Cantil-Sakauye wrote in his judgment on Monday.
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