(Feb. 29, 2020, 11:50 p.m.) -- In January 2020, a Superior Court judge sentenced a 37 year old man to a year in jail after he pleaded no contest to driving drunk and running over and killing a wheelchair-bound LB resident at Bellflower Blvd./Harvey Way. A little over three weeks later, the L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. under Sheriff Alex Villanueva released him. The 23-day jail term was recently reported in a well-written story by Valerie Osier who noted the role played by AB 109.
LBREPORT.com goes further. AB 109 was a Sacramento-enacted bill. LBREPORT.com lists below the Sacramento lawmakers who voted in March 2011 to enact AB 109. Their actions then have present day consequences now. (LB-area legislators are in boldface font.) March 17, 2011: [Scroll down for further.] |
Governor Brown did more than just "sign" AB 109. He proposed it, not as substantive reform but as a defensive measure after the U.S. Supreme Court (5-4 ruling) enabled a federal court to order CA to release 46,000 convicted criminals due to state prison overcrowding (8th Amendment: cruel and unusual punishment.) The overcrowding stemmed in part from Sacramento passing tough-on-crime laws that put more people behind bars but didn't build sufficient new prisons to house them. When forced by lawsuits to confront the results, Governor Brown proposed "realigning" the state's role to require CA counties (instead of the state) to incarcerate those convicted of various type of crimes, some quite serious but deemed by Sacramento to be non-violent, non-serious or non-sex-related. That action precipitated a predictable trainwreck locally. Los Angeles County (like a number of other counties) has jail overcrowding. Multiple L.A. County Sheriffs (all elected) -- Leroy Baca, Jim McDonnell and now Alex Villanueva -- have dealt with this by releasing some inmates "early," letting some sentenced to serve six months or a year walk away in weeks or days or in some cases hours.
In November, 2017, LBREPORT.com reported that an individual (previously arrested and turned loose) who attacked a man walking with his two young daughters along 2nd St. in Belmont Shore was arrested by LBPD, prosecuted by the City Prosecutor's office, pleaded guilty and was sentenced by a Superior Court judge to the maximum misdemeanor allowed term: six months in jail. The LA County Sheriff Dept. released him roughly 24 hours after he was sentenced, LBREPORT.com followed up and reported that LASD's then-current jail criteria under Sheriff McDonnell commonly resulted in same-day releases of persons sentenced to 180 days or less for misdemeanors in L.A. County. LASD's release under Sheriff Villanueva of the DUI driver after 23 days -- effectively erasing 93% of his one-year sentence after his actions took a man's life after drinking before driving -- displays realignment's real world impacts.
In April 2018, LB Councilmembers Stacy Mungo and Suzie Price agendized an item to put the City of LB on record as supporting a petition-initiative seeking changes in AB 109 and Propositions 47 and 57. Some LB groups, supported by 2nd dist. Councilwoman Jeannine Pearce, opposed the action.
Councilmembers Mungo and Price pulled their item off the Council agenda and the statewide initiative barely missed making the 2018 statewide ballot...but it will now appear on the November 2020 statewide ballot (details here.). In other words, in just months, the public will have an opportunity to undo parts of what Sacramento lawmakers did in enacting AB 109 and CA voters did by approving Props 47 and 57. It won't undo what the drunk driver did at Bellflower Blvd/Harvey Way, but it might undo parts of what Sacramento lawmakers did nine years ago that have produced unjust outcomes in that case and others. Developing...with further to follow on LBREPORT.com.
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