Two significant criminal justice bills were introduced in California’s Senate during this session, which ended late last month. One stalled, the other passed, but is still awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature.
California SB 1001, which will ensure that California removes from death row all people who have an intellectual disability and prevent those with an intellectual disability from being sentenced to death in the first place, passed.
SB 1001 includes amendments that expand the protections of the current statute, written to comply with the 2002 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that it is unconstitutional to execute a person with intellectual disability. The bill now includes people who meet the criteria for an intellectual disability diagnosis, even if they were diagnosed with I.D. after childhood; codifies the procedures prosecutors must use when seeking testing of a person raising a claim of I.D.; provides for quick resolution of cases in which all parties agree the person has I.D.; codifies the constitutional prohibition on charging people with I.D. with the death penalty; and ensures that California is not executing people who have an intellectual disability.
“SB 1001 will ensure that C.A. is not engaging in cruel and unusual punishment by executing people who are intellectually disabled,” State Senator Nancy Skinner, who sponsored SB 1001, stated on her website.
SB 94 would have allowed individuals sentenced to life without parole before June 1990 and have served a minimum of 25 years to petition to have their cases reconsidered for resentencing by a judicial court, state parole board, and the governor.
But despite the enormous cost savings to the state—it’s estimated about 820 people would have been eligible for resentencing, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year—and the fact that the majority of those serving life without parole sentences are classified as low risk on CDCR’s Static Risk Assessment tool, the Assembly chose not to even vote on SB 94.
“After two years of negotiations and over a dozen deliberated amendments, I am incredibly disappointed that SB 94 was not granted the opportunity to be heard and the amendments considered for vote by the full legislature. The bill, like those it would’ve helped, did not get its day in court,” state Sen. Dave Cortese said on his website.
Newsom has until the end of the month to sign — or not — hundreds of bills on his desk, CalMatters reports. So far, he has signed 50 Assembly bills and vetoed six, and signed just one Senate bill and vetoed another, according to CalMatters.
