Sentencing Law and Policy: Spotlighting prosecutors advocating for and embracing second-look sentencing mechanisms typepad.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from typepad.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Man who spent 17 years in prison for Orinda burglary is freed under new law
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District Attorney Diana Becton talks with Scott Alonso (not shown), public information officer for the Office of the District Attorney, in her office on Friday, August 28, 2020 in Martinez, Calif.Lea Suzuki / The ChronicleShow MoreShow Less
2of3District Attorney Diana Becton (right) talks with Scott Alonso (left), public information officer for the Office of the District Attorney, in her offifce on Friday, August 28, 2020 in Martinez, Calif.Lea Suzuki / The ChronicleShow MoreShow Less
3of3District Attorney Diana Becton stands for a portrait in front of the Office of the District Attorney on Friday, August 28, 2020 in Martinez, Calif.Lea Suzuki / The ChronicleShow MoreShow Less
SAN DIEGO
Most of the burglaries hit in early 1995, break-ins at Rancho Santa Fe homes. The thief made off with pricey pieces of jewelry.
James Sotero Riviera was eventually arrested. In 1997, a San Diego jury found him guilty of a string of burglaries. Riviera already had a criminal record, one that stretched into Arizona and New Mexico. Convictions there, plus a prior one in Northern California, meant those local break-ins would come at a hefty cost under California’s three-strikes law. He got 140 years to life. Killers get less time.
Riviera is now 84 and living in a San Luis Obispo prison. But within the next two weeks, he will be released on parole, with more than a hundred years shaved from his sentence. San Diego Superior Court Judge Jay Bloom agreed Monday to resentence Riviera to less than 28 years effectively time served.
Created: February 23, 2021 04:10 PM
Tuesday, some of Minnesota s top prosecutors came together to support a bill that would allow prosecutors to shorten long prison sentences for elderly inmates who ve worked to rehabilitate themselves.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman and Ramsey County Attorney John Choi joined the Minnesota Second Chance Coalition in a virtual news conference to support the bill, which they said is similar to laws in California and Washington state. I have long felt that we should have few, if any, inmates over 65 or 70, Freeman said. Sentences that may be appropriate when they were imposed are not appropriate today.
Second chances: Yolo courts open doors for two men
Life had not been kind to Brian O’Donnell.
Raised in a turbulent, abusive household, O’Donnell fell into a bad crowd that introduced him to drugs, alcohol and crime at the young age of 12.
5 minute read
Manuel Palacio, upper right, and Yolo Superior Court Judge David Rosenberg, center, listen as Palacio’s wife Beatriz Arizaga, lower center, pleas for his return from Mexico to the United States during a Feb. 3 Zoom court hearing. Courtesy photo
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Life had not been kind to Brian O’Donnell.
Raised in a turbulent, abusive household, O’Donnell fell into a bad crowd that introduced him to drugs, alcohol and crime at the young age of 12.