By Stephanie Lam
Bay Area News Group
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — State lawmakers have dismissed a bill by a Santa Clara County senator that would have provided a chance at release for some inmates serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for murder.
Sen. Dave Cortese, a San Jose Democrat, authored SB 94 in 2022 in hope of offering inmates who were convicted of murders committed before June 5, 1990, and who already have served a minimum of 25 years, opportunities to seek parole.
“After two years of negotiations and over a dozen deliberated amendments, I am incredibly disappointed that SB 94 was not granted the opportunity to be heard and the amendments considered for vote by the full Legislature,” Cortese said in a statement. “The bill, like those it would’ve helped, did not get its day in court.”
The bill was opposed by victim-rights and law enforcement groups and Republican lawmakers.
“Far too often, we hear about the rights of criminals here in Sacramento, while the rights of victims are trampled upon,” Assemblyman Juan Alanis, a Modesto Republican and former sheriff’s sergeant, said in a statement. “I am proud that we were able to help ensure the wounds of victims and their families for crimes as horrific as murder and rape will not have to be reopened by the release of criminals who have been rightfully sentenced to life in prison.”
The bill was sponsored by the Oakland -based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which referred to it as “a modest reform that allows judges to give a fresh look at sentences that are at least 25 years old.”
Had the bill been passed and signed into law, those convicted killers would have been able to ask a judge to change their sentences to 25 years to life with consideration of parole. The bill would not have applied to those convicted of first-degree murder of an on-duty law enforcement officer, or of certain sexual offenses in conjunction with homicide.
It quickly raised hackles among victim-rights advocates like Vanetta Perdue, a North Carolina woman who nearly lost her life in 1982 when her mother’s estranged, abusive husband broke into their home near Monterey, doused Perdue’s mother with gasoline and set her on fire, killing her and leaving their children to die with her in the flames. She spoke out against the bill at the state Capitol in Sacramento a year ago, saying “Life without parole is supposed to be just that.”
During the legislative session that concluded Saturday, the bill did not have the votes to pass and was placed on “inactive file.”
Cortese was not available Monday for a comment. But his statement late last week he said he remains troubled by the inconsistencies in existing law that allow some notorious inmates a chance to petition for parole, while others who were minor participants in a deadly crime get no chance. SB 94 followed a host of criminal justice reform measures that the state’s Democrats have pushed in recent years.
“We must continue the conversation and revisit racist, inconsistent and harmful sentencing that has disproportionately impacted Californians for over twenty years, and will continue to wreak havoc until fixed,” Cortese said in a statement.
But state Sen. Kelly Seyarto, a Murrieta Republican who serves as vice chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee, said the bill “would’ve been disastrous for public safety and victims’ rights” and that many of Cortese’s fellow Democrats who hold supermajorities in the legislature agreed. “We know that when voters come together and demand to be heard, even the supermajority has to take it seriously and listen to the will of the people.”
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