Give Stanley Bernard Davis a Chance for Parole!
By the Drop LWOP Coalition
On September 1, 2021 Stanley Bernard Davis, a Black man who was sentenced to the death penalty in 1989, was resentenced to Life Without Parole (LWOP). Prosecutors in the L.A. District Attorney’s office accepted a habeas corpus petition from Mr. Davis which demonstrated that he had an intellectual disability and therefore was legally ineligible for the death penalty.
An LWOP sentence is just another form of the death penalty, condemning Mr. Davis to death by incarceration. The same criteria that disqualify Mr. Davis for the death penalty should be applicable to his LWOP sentence. After serving over three decades in prison and finally demonstrating that his sentence was faulty, Mr. Davis should be given a chance to 
appear before the Parole Board so that they can determine his eligibility for parole.
The Los Angeles D.A.’s office opposes the death penalty because of its racial bias. The racism of LWOP sentencing is even more stark than that of the death penalty. 68% of those serving LWOP in California are Black and Latinx. 62% of those sentenced to LWOP are younger than 25. Mr. Davis was 23 when he committed his offense. LWOP sentences reflect a tough-on-crime culture that was rampant in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Such extreme sentences have no place in a twenty-first century society that is trying to move away from mass incarceration.
When death sentences are overturned, LWOP resentencing should not be the default. Stanley Bernard Davis’ claim of an intellectual disability has been vindicated after over thirty years of wasted litigation on the part of the state of California. Mr. Davis should not have to spend the rest of his life in prison without a chance to demonstrate his rehabilitation. He should be given a life with the possibility of parole sentence and the chance to go to the Parole Board!
Readers may want to know, these are the crimes Stanley Bernard Davis was convicted of since they weren’t included in the article.