CA Bill Releases Death Sentenced Murderers After 20 Years

This article was published in the  April 11, issue of the California Globe.

The California Senate Public Safety Committee will hear a legislative proposal Thursday which would give the state’s worst murderers, who have been sentenced to death or life without the possibility of parole (LWOP), the opportunity to have their sentences invalidated and make them eligible for parole.  SB94, introduced by Senator Dave Cortese (D-Santa Clara), specifies that criminals  convicted of murder with special circumstances before June 5, 1990 and sentenced to death or LWOP would be provided with a public defender to petition for recall and resentencing.  The bill would authorize the court to modify the petitioner’s sentence to impose a lesser sentence and apply any changes in law that reduce sentences or provide for judicial discretion, or to vacate the petitioner’s conviction and impose judgment on a lesser included offense.  Among the murderers who could apply for a sentence reduction and possible release is Tequon Cox, who in 1984, went to the wrong address for a gang-revenge killing and murdered a mother, her daughter and two of her grandchildren.  Cox was sentenced to death for these crimes.  In 2004, while on death row, Cox stabbed another condemned murderer and, along with three other murderers, cut a hole in the San Quentin fence and nearly  escaped.   UPDATE:  SB94 passed out of the committee by a vote of 4-1.  It now goes to the Appropriations Committee.

Coauthors of SB94 include San Mateo Democrat Senator Josh Becker, Senator Nancy Skinner (D Alameda), Senator Scott Wiener (D San Francisco),  Assemblymembers Corrie Jackson (D Riverside) and Akilah Weber (D. San Diego).

The beneficiaries of this measure, if passed, will be the worst murderers in California.  These are murderers who killed multiple victims or killed in concert with a rape, robbery, kidnapping or torture.  While it would seem unthinkable for any legislator, let alone a group of them, to want their names on a bill that would allow murderers like these to go free, bear in mind that Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, Alameda County DA Pamela Price and California Attorney General Rob Bonta all support setting murderers free after 15-20 years in prison.

With the recent fatal shooting of a 5-year-old girl riding in the backseat of her parents car on a bay area freeway, last week’s  stabbing murder of a revered tech executive Bob Lee on a San Francisco sidewalk and random fatal shooting of an innocent hostage and injury of two others at a Roseville Park, the slogan “no justice, no peace” seems quite appropriate for the Golden State.