The case of Eliaser Aguilar is the exact type of case that Proposition 36, passed overwhelmingly by the voters last November, attempted to address. Mr. Aguilar spent nearly 14 years in prison for a single count of possession of meth in 1999.
The Aguilar case, in fact, illustrates the flaws of the previous system. Mr. Aguilar, you see, was not being punished for his use of meth so much as he was for his previous offense, back in 1987, when he was 30 years old and committed a string of armed robberies.
Under the previous law, the judge had the discretion to “strike” one of the previous strikes – something that Judge Timothy Fall back in 1999 recognized. By striking a previous strike, one still faces a doubled prison term, which back in 1999 would have been eight years.
However, the DA’s office appealed Judge Fall’s decision and in 2001 they overturned it, and Judge Fall was forced to sentence Mr. Aguilar to 25 years to life for a single count of possession of methamphetamine.
Prop 36 has far greater teeth than the previous law, pushing the burden of proof onto the prosecutor that the offender presents “a current, unreasonable danger to public safety.”
There is no doubt that Mr. Aguilar, back in 1987, was a dangerous criminal committing a string of armed robberies. But that was 26 years ago. Back then he was 30, now he’s 56.
That the District Attorney’s office would want to contest Mr. Aguilar’s release from prison is not a surprising move. We can understand their reasons for wanting to prevent Mr. Aguilar’s release.
What is striking about their argument, other than getting the law wrong in terms of the burden of proof, is the speculative nature of it.
Deputy DA Christopher Bulkeley argues, “The Petitioner will require a funding source to purchase his drugs in the future. He is virtually unemployable as he has no identifiable job skills coupled with a nonexistent employment history for the last few decades. He will most likely revert to criminal activities in order to fund his illicit drug use which has the potential to turn violent if one looks at past performance as an indication of future conduct.”
The honest fact of the matter is that Mr. Bulkeley is not exactly wrong here. Mr. Aguilar has been in prison for most of the last 26 years. He lacks job skills. He lacks a familial support structure.
And, most importantly, Prop 36 lacks any kind of supervision component and it lacks any kind of support structure. It is a limited flaw in Prop 36 which is mostly a prospective law – it will change sentencing in the future. But with regard to releasing inmates on past non-violent, non-dangerous offenses, it seems to set people up for failure.
The legislature could and should step in and provide some funding for people like Eliaser Aguilar to have a chance to get their lives back in order, to get some job skills and avoid going right back to prison.
At the same time, I think the DA’s argument is completely off base. We put Mr. Aguilar in prison for 14 years for possession of a drug. That is an indefensible punishment for an extremely minor crime. Punishing Mr. Aguilar twice for his 1987 crime seems to violate the very principles upon which this nation’s justice system rests.
Moreover, is our $50,000 a year prison cell really the best place to help Mr. Aguilar get back on his feet?
Counties across the state, in attempting to deal with AB 109, have had to make decisions about how to spend millions in state AB 109 funds.
Last summer, Yolo County made the decision to spend its $6 million on everything from more jail space at the county jail to increased electronic monitoring and supervision of offenders following release. About $1 million of that will go to treatment centers and support for offenders.
While most of the officials ended up supporting the arrangement, Supervisor Don Saylor said that, while he favored aspects of the plan, he did not believe enough was going to substance abuse, housing assistance, job skills training, and behavioral health needs.
Without these supports, the fear is that offenders will simply reoffend and end up right back in the system.
“We have an opportunity to reframe the system,” Supervisor Saylor said at the time, as quoted in a Davis Enterprise article from July. “But the absence of support services makes it challenging. We’re not at a place where we are balancing enforcement with supportive services.”
The Enterprise reported in July, “Rather, he noted, 16 percent of AB 109 funds will go toward treatment and the day reporting center, and while the center will provide substance abuse and behavioral health treatment, along with education and employment services, it would not be available to the entire population that might need it, Saylor said.”
Bob Schelen, who chaired the Yolo County Mental Health Board, also noted the inequity in funding.
He told Supervisors, “”There are counties were the monies have been split on an almost 50-50 basis between treatment (and enforcement) and we should be one of those counties.”
While the AB 109 argument is somewhat separate, the core issue is the same – how do you provide services that can get people released from custody the support they need so that they do not have to do, as Mr. Bulkeley argues, offend in order to support themselves?
The DA here wants to have it both ways – they won’t support the evidence-based support system approaches to prevent recidivism, and then they use the lack of resources as justification for keeping people incarcerated for relatively minor offenses in prison longer, at huge costs to the public.
From a cost perspective, it is far cheaper to treat Mr. Aguilar and provide him with training and support than it is to keep him in custody. But we need to find a way to provide him and thousands like him who will be released in the coming months with the services they need to avoid going right back to prison and, more importantly, preventing innocent people from being hurt in the process.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I think the link you make between Prop 36 releases and AB109 (releases and new offenders dealt with under the law) is apt. Last week I listened to a talk by Mike Jimenez, Executive Vice President of the CCPOA and he made the same point about all people released from prison. He screened a video that the CCPOA has put out showing a program in Hawaii that deals with non-violent offenders using evidence-based programs and one from Nevada that prepares inmates for release by providing residential transitional living and job training (with links to local companies). He noted that NO such programs exist at the state level in California and expressed concern about what some counties appear to be doing (or not doing) with AB109 money.
I was surprised to see the CCPOA touting these views but the very clear message was “mass incarceration” has failed us but we have not put into place any system to help prisoners (state level) reintegrate back into society. Further, Mr Jimenez expressed a concern that the counties, under AB109, are making the same mistake.
The bottom line is this: if the state and counties do not deal with issues of housing, job training, drug counseling, etc., the burden of providing those services falls on a small and poorly funded set of non-government organizations. These organizations provide excellent services in most cases and are staffed by dedicated staff and volunteers but they are small and overextended and not well equipped to deal with the variety of problems faced by those released from prison and jail.
David wrote:
> Aguilar spent nearly 14 years in prison for a single
> count of possession of meth in 1999.
I think we should make all drigs legal (except meth).
I’m wondering if David would be OK with an ex-felon meth user living next to him and his family?
One of my best employees is an ex felon (and ex drug user), but he was not a guy over 40 using meth.
I’m also wondering if anyone knows even a single person who was still using meth after 40 that got things together.
Meth is scary stuff and when someone is still using it after 40 they will have a fried brain and we will always have to keep an eye on them…
“‘m wondering if David would be OK with an ex-felon meth user living next to him and his family?”
One’s in my house now as we speak. What’s your point?
SOD – Meth is one of the worst human inventions of all time. I have never seen anything like it. Most of the people I know who have used it struggle with it for a long time and only time will tell where it takes them ultimately. Having said that, I have one family member and I can point to 4 people right now in Yolo County who “kicked” it after using it into their 40s. Will they relapse? Only time will tell but many have been clean for years. My family member has been off of it for 12 years.
It is a long process but I think investments in rehab for drugs (and alcohol) have been shown to be effective. I can hunt up some analysis done in Washington state (I believe) that assesses various programs that have been successful in reducing recidivism–including drug/alcohol counseling and rehab if I am not mistaken.
Agree with most of the comments, but let’s remember that three-strikers don’t get long sentences for a charge of drug possession or cheese possession.
These folks get these sentences because they’ve been judged to be habitual criminals with histories of serious convictions. They aren’t being punished for their most recent crime or the one just before it or being punished twice for the same crime. They are being locked up to protect the rest of society from those whose actions in the past jeopardize us in the future.
Mandatory three strikes laws should be abolished. Judges, however, likely will give “revolving door” criminals maximum sentences if they convicted person has a long history of violent criminal behavior? Five strikes, maybe? A dozen? At some point, enough is enough.
I’d rather have a judge evaluate each case individually and, using broad guidelines, make the sentence fit the crime and the criminal.
That Eliaser Aguilar has spent so much of his life in our very expensive prison system only to find himself without any job skills is a disgrace. What has he learned at $50,000 a year?
Without more information about what services already are available in Yolo County, it’s difficult to be too critical of the decision to spent “only $1-million” for more treatment centers and support. After all, is the state money now being spent in a different ration? Counties now will need to fund the facilities and services that previously were provided by the state prison system.
Maybe Yolo County needs a different plan for augmenting the county systems with the $6-million. In any case, it barely apples to Mr. Augilar’s three strikes release since, as you point out, he’ll be under no obligation to show up for supervision, treatment or training. Of course, he’s only one person, and he can take advantage of existing voluntary programs if he wants.
[url]http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/06/5242083/more-calif-sex-offenders-go-missing.html/url]
I know this isn’t the best place for this but here it is.
[url]http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/06/5242083/more-calif-sex-offenders-go-missing.html[/url]
Sorry. I’m not tech savvy but I tried.