CA Law Enforcement Braces for Inmate Releases

Last month California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he was authorizing the early release of another 8,000 prison inmates due to the coronavirus pandemic.  Quinn Wilson of the Bakersfield Californian reports that Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood is concerned about the type of offenders being released.  “You must be an overachiever at committing crimes to be in (a CDCR facility).  These are reoffenders and they’re going to go out and reoffend,” said the Sheriff.

While state officials say that the inmates have qualified for early release by earning credits for good behavior, Youngblood notes that virtually all inmates who are not “murdering, lighting a building on fire or participating in gang activity” get a free three months off their sentences.  He is also concerned that corrections officials are basing their decision to release inmates on their most recent conviction not their full criminal record.

But sometimes even that doesn’t matter as we learn from Terry Woods of Fox News.  Woods reports that corrections officials have approved the early release of murderer Jerry McKiearman.  In 2000, McKiearman was convicted on overwhelming  evidence and sentenced to 26-years-to-life for stabbing his roommate 42 times and dismembering the body.  Police found the victim’s head, legs and torso in separate plastic bags in a closet of their apartment.  San Joaquin County District Attorney Tim Ward told reporters that the murder was among the “most horrific I have ever seen.  The proper placement for the defendant is behind prison walls and not back in our community of any other community in California.”