SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California attorney general has reversed his previous position and now opposes sentencing violent youth offenders to terms longer than 50 years to life, according to an article from The San Francisco Chronicle.
This change in opinion from Attorney General Rob Bonta comes as a case reaches the state Supreme Court regarding whether lengthy terms — any longer than 50 years — for youth offenders constitute life without parole or de facto death sentences, which have been prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court, reports the Chronicle.
Though the state Supreme Court has barred 50-years-to-life sentences for minors convicted of non-homicidal crimes, a recent case in an appeals court upheld a 50-years-to-life sentence for a Los Angeles man convicted in 2005 of gang-related murder at age 17.
In this case, the trial judge, Justice Rashida Adams, decided that the accused “will be eligible for parole well within his life expectancy and has a meaningful opportunity to be released.”
The state Supreme Court will now decide a similar issue regarding another minor, Ramiro Munoz, sentenced to 50 years to life for a gang-related murder, according to the Chronicle.
If the state Supreme Court rules that those longer sentences for minors are unconstitutional, prisoners currently serving those sentences would get the opportunity to have new hearings that could reduce their sentences, the Chronicle reported.
The Chronicle also reported that the attorney general had formerly argued in various briefs that “sentences for a fixed term of years did not amount to [life without parole],” but he reversed his stance in the Munoz case.
Defense lawyers supporting Bonta’s new position have argued that the life expectancy of people sentenced as minors is 60 years or less, which indicates that “half of those sentenced to terms of at least 50 years are likely to die in prison, and most of those who survive have few prospects of a meaningful life,” the Chronicle reported.
“On average, you age two years in prison for every year,” Christopher Hawthorne, a law professor and director of the Fair Sentencing Clinic at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said. He described how prisoners often lack “decent bedding, exercise, life purpose, [and the] ability to settle down and raise a family,” also arguing that “medical care in prison is atrocious.”
Though California has set various limits on sentencing offenders under 18, federal law still permits minors to be sentenced to life in prison if the charges involve multiple murders or murders committed alongside rape or robbery. These state-level limits have not significantly changed the parole rates for youthful offenders, according to the Chronicle.
Attorney General Bonta did not elaborate on the reasons for his reversal.
