Bill Round-Up, Turmoil in Hawaiian Gardens, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, and Reviewing Realignment

NOTEWORTHY CALIFORNIA BILLS SIGNED INTO LAW

On Thursday, CA Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 504, a bill to eliminate the often prohibitive $150 fee to seal a juvenile record for anyone under the age of 26. The bill, introduced by Senator Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), will also ensure that unpaid fines and restitution will not bar young people from expungement.

“SB 504 will help reduce recidivism among juvenile youth by removing the fee to seal their records and thereby helping them secure permanent employment,” said Senator Lara. “It’s a major victory for juvenile justice reform and for youth trying to turn their lives around.”

Another important bill that won Gov. Brown’s signature, SB 794, requires county child welfare and probation departments to establish services for foster children at risk of sexual exploitation. Those departments will also have to create and implement specific protocols to swiftly locate missing kids. The bill will also ramp up probation and child welfare agencies’ duties to report to law enforcement within 24 hours when a child at risk of sexual exploitation goes missing or is abducted.

Gov. Brown also signed two meaningful bills to help exonerated state inmates.

AB 672 by Assemblymember Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer Sr. (D-Los Angeles), bridges a huge gap in assistance for exonerees by allowing prisoners who have been exonerated of their convictions to access the same re-entry services as any other inmate exiting lock-up.

And SB 635 by Senator Jim W. Nielsen (R-Gerber) will raise the compensation paid to exonerees for their time lost behind bars from $100 a day to $136.98 per day, adding up to $50,000 per year. This bill was inspired by Obie Anthony, who spent 17 years in prison for a murder he did not commit before being exonerated in 2011.

---

CONTROVERSIAL HAWAIIAN GARDENS SHOOTING HEIGHTENS TENSION BETWEEN OFFICERS AND RESIDENTS

On July 5th, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy fatally shot Johnny Ray Anderson, a Hawaiian Gardens man who the deputy says tried to grab his gun.

Lawyers for Anderson’s family argue that the physical evidence shows Anderson was too far away from the deputy to have grabbed for the firearm.

The inconsistencies between narratives of how Anderson died have churned up tension between the sheriff’s department and the city’s residents.

The Hawaiian Gardens City Council voted to ask the FBI to look into the troubling shooting.

Barry Bruce, the mayor of Hawaiian Gardens, faults the 10-year-old city-wide gang injunction for much of the tension. Bruce says the injunction unfairly targets innocent residents (in addition to guilty ones) by banning things like public bicycle-riding and gathering on street corners. Many residents, however, say they feel much safer because of the injunctions, which led to a major reduction in violent crime between 2005 and 2014.

The LA Times’ Ruben Vives and Cindy Chang have more on the issue. Here’s a clip:

The city…is home to a notorious gang: Varrio Hawaiian Gardens. VHG, as it is sometimes known, has been implicated in killings, drugs and weapons trafficking, extortion and racially motivated attacks designed to drive African Americans from their homes.

One of the gang members fatally shot Deputy Jerry Ortiz in 2005. Jose Luis Orozco, who had devil horns tattooed on his forehead, received a death sentence for Ortiz’s killing. His fellow gang members were hit with the injunction, and in 2009, 147 members and associates were charged in a massive federal racketeering case. At the time, the FBI claimed 1 in 15 residents in Hawaiian Gardens had ties to the gang.

Despite the crackdown, VHG is still going strong and is currently at war with gangs in neighboring communities such as Artesia, said Capt. Keith Swensson, who runs the Lakewood sheriff’s station.

Crime has shot up in Hawaiian Gardens recently, with violent and property crimes up 78% from last year and 42% from five years ago. In 2015, aggravated assaults have increased 106%, burglaries 127% and larcenies 114%.

The uptick in assaults may have to do with increased gang activity, Swensson said. But he blamed the property crime increases on other lower-level offenders.

Still, Swensson said, the situation has improved from the days when he drove a patrol car as a deputy in the 1980s and 1990s. Back then, residents were scared to walk down the street because they might encounter a group of gang members. Swensson said that even as an armed law enforcement officer he felt scared driving around by himself in the early mornings.

From 2005 to 2014, violent crime by gang members dropped 74% in the city, compared with a 62% drop in overall violent crime. In 2005, half of violent crimes in Hawaiian Gardens were committed by gang members. The figure last year was 35%.

The injunction is targeting the right people, Swensson said, noting that to be added to it a person has to admit that he or she is in the gang or show an obvious sign of gang association such as a gang tattoo. The prohibition against gang members congregating in public has been instrumental in making residents feel safer, he said.

[SNIP]

The city’s mayor does not agree. In a letter to Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Whittier) requesting the FBI investigation, Bruce wrote that residents had complained that sheriff’s deputies violated their civil rights and that he did not trust local officials to investigate Anderson’s killing.

While the gang injunction has been useful in rounding up dangerous people, it has cast too wide a net, catching many “dolphins” as well as “sharks,” Bruce said in an interview.

“The department, the way they treat people in the community, it’s like everyone is a gangster in Hawaiian Gardens. No one’s a regular person,” said Bruce, who runs a ministry for at-risk youth. “It shows contempt and a prejudicial attitude towards the community.”

The city pays the Sheriff’s Department more than $3 million a year to patrol its streets. In the past, Bruce has threatened to contract with a different agency or start a city police department. While there is currently no plan to switch, Bruce noted that a new casino is in the works and would bring extra revenue that could make the city’s own police department “a very plausible idea.”

“I’d rather work with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department if they can be more transparent and more concerned about the things their officers are involved in,” Bruce said.

---

MORE ON THE US SENATORS’ CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM EFFORTS ANNOUNCED THURSDAY

On Thursday morning, a bipartisan group of Judiciary Committee members, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), announced a criminal justice overhaul plan called the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015.

The other bill sponsors are Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), John Cornyn (R-TX), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mike Lee (R-UT), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT).

The massive 141-page bill, the result of a six month collaborative effort, which Sen. Schumer likened to solving a “Rubiks Cube,” deserves very careful review, but here is a run-down of the basics from the bill summary:

– Reforms and Targets Enhanced Mandatory Minimums for Prior Drug Felons: The bill reduces the enhanced penalties that apply to repeat drug offenders and eliminates the three-strike mandatory life provision, but it allows those enhanced penalties to be applied to offenders with prior convictions for serious violent and serious drug felonies.

– Broadens the Existing Safety Valve and Creates a Second Safety Valve: The bill expands the existing safety valve to offenders with more extensive criminal histories but excludes defendants with prior felonies and violent or drug trafficking offenses unless a court finds those prior offenses substantially overstate the defendant’s criminal history and danger of recidivism. The bill also creates a second safety valve that gives judges discretion to sentence certain low-level offenders below the 10-year mandatory minimum. But defendants convicted of serious violent and serious drug felonies cannot benefit from these reforms.

– Reforms Enhanced Mandatory Minimums and Sentences for Firearm Offenses: The bill expands the reach of the enhanced mandatory minimum for violent firearm offenders to those with prior federal or state firearm offenses but reduces that mandatory minimum to provide courts with greater flexibility in sentencing. The bill also raises the statutory maximum for unlawful possession of firearms but lowers the enhanced mandatory minimum for repeat offenders.

– Creates New Mandatory Minimums for Interstate Domestic Violence and Certain Export Control Violations: The bill adds new mandatory minimum sentences for certain crimes involving interstate domestic violence and creates a new mandatory minimum for providing weapons and other defense materials to prohibited countries and terrorists.

– Applies the Fair Sentencing Act and Certain Sentencing Reforms Retroactively

– Provides for Prison Reform based on the Cornyn-Whitehouse CORRECTIONS Act: The bill requires the Department of Justice to conduct risk assessments to classify all federal inmates and to use the results to assign inmates to appropriate recidivism reduction programs, including work and education programs, drug rehabilitation, job training, and faith-based programs. Eligible prisoners who successfully complete these programs can earn early release and may spend the final portion (up to 25 percent) of their remaining sentence in home confinement or a halfway house.

– Limits Solitary Confinement for Juveniles in Federal Custody and Improves the Accuracy of Federal Criminal Records

– Provides for a Report and Inventory of All Federal Criminal Offenses

“For decades, our broken criminal justice system has held our nation back from realizing its full potential,” said Sen. Booker. “Today, we take a step forward. Mass incarceration has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, drained our economy, compromised public safety, hurt our children, and disproportionately affected communities of color while devaluing the very idea of justice in America. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act is a promising, bipartisan step forward to help right this wrong.”

“This legislation is modeled after successful Texas reforms that have rehabilitated prisoners, reduced crime rates, and saved taxpayer dollars,” said Sen. Coryn. “This bipartisan package will protect law enforcement’s ability to aggressively target violent criminals and serious offenders, while focusing on justice, rehabilitation, and public safety. I look forward to working with this bipartisan coalition to move this bill through Congress and to the President’s desk.”

---

TAKING A LOOK AT THE EFFECTS OF REALIGNMENT, NEARING ITS FOUR-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

A study assessing California’s public safety realignment, four years after its implementation, found that recidivism rates have remained largely the same and state spending on corrections is at an all-time high (for a variety of reasons, including prison and jail-building).

Realignment has not increased violent crime, but may have contributed to a rise in auto thefts, according to the study from the Public Policy Institute of California.

(If you need a refresher: realignment, AB 109, shifted the incarceration burden for certain low-level offenders away from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to the states’ 58 counties.)

KPCC’s Frank Stoltze has more on the study.