Good evening. And welcome to kqed newsroom. Eye thuy vu. We dedicate tonights program to the california criminal Justice System that affects prisoners serving life sentences. 15 years to life, 25 years to life, mostly for murder. Under governor jerry browns administration a Record Number of socalled lifers are being granted parole. The Governors Office says this has nothing to do with the need to reduce prison overcrowding. Instead they insist the trend is driven mostly by Court Rulings that make it harder to deny parole. Scott shafer takes a look at a no program aimed at addressing the growing number of lifers getting out. Reporter hundreds of inmates mere at solano prison in vacaville are hoping for a second chance, and officials think the key is rehabilitation. Hurt people. Reporter these prisoners are doing sentences like 25 years to life, some for the most heinous crimes imaginable. The hurt that we carry, we take it out on somebody else. Reporter they dont know if theyll ever get
Its the theft cases we need to go through. The question i was trying to get to is whats the timeline and how long will it take. I was trying to get to that. I anticipate we would finish by the summer, weve done about 300, theres another 300 or so left where were going through the review. There may be somewhere our office and the public defender will have a different idea and will require a hearing in a court room. When you guys are in disagreement you go before the court, you said . Yes. Can you briefly explain that process . Thats unclear. If we felt somebody was ineligible to be resentenced on a misdemeanor and the Public Defenders Office felt they were eligible, we could have a hearing in the court where they could argue why they felt the conduct or the charge qualified them and we could explain why. Which court would this happen . The superior court, the hall of justice. You can continue. The file review process is whats difficult here because we have to pull, especially if were ge
To get to is whats the timeline and how long will it take. I was trying to get to that. I anticipate we would finish by the summer, weve done about 300, theres another 300 or so left where were going through the review. There may be somewhere our office and the public defender will have a different idea and will require a hearing in a court room. When you guys are in disagreement you go before the court, you said . Yes. Can you briefly explain that process . Thats unclear. If we felt somebody was ineligible to be resentenced on a misdemeanor and the Public Defenders Office felt they were eligible, we could have a hearing in the court where they could argue why they felt the conduct or the charge qualified them and we could explain why. Which court would this happen . The superior court, the hall of justice. You can continue. The file review process is whats difficult here because we have to pull, especially if were getting many requests from individuals who have older convictions. We n
Could argue why they felt the conduct or the charge qualified them and we could explain why. Which court would this happen . The superior court, the hall of justice. You can continue. The file review process is whats difficult here because we have to pull, especially if were getting many requests from individuals who have older convictions. We need to review as many cases as possible to see if people qualify for relief. There are many defendants, former defendants who are not even aware they may qualify for relief. We also want to reach out to them through our own file review to let them know we are here to assist them with that endeavor. We dont want to file blind petitions. We may see a charge that is eligible but we dont have a rap sheet so we need to pull a file to see if there is a previous conviction that makes them ineligible was because i do not want to burden the District Attorneys Office when we can get a rap sheet and determine if they are ineligible. At this time we have tw
Receiving stolen property conviction from San Francisco thats a felony and weve worked very closely with the District Attorneys Office to see if we can expedite relief for those people if they are in fact eligible. On the other hand we are also receiving many phone calls from individuals who are not eligible and we have to review, we have to take those requests and make sure that we review them to see if many defendants dont even remember what they were convicted of. They just say, i had a drug offense. Then we review it, we have to pull old files, we find it was with intent to sell and thats not eligible. They have a secondary burglary but its not a commercial burglary, its an auto burglary and thats not eligible. And thats taken a great deal of time for us to review. As you have been informed our priorities to get the people out of prison, thats been done, people out of county jail, thats been done. Right now were currently working on people on felony probation and as the Adult Proba