Articles in the New York Times and the New York Daily News provide more evidence that criminal justice reform has become a top issue, especially in Democrat controlled communities.  The shift in majorities in the Virginia Legislature has sparked bills to allow the early release of murderers over 50-years-old and expand parole opportunities for criminals convicted of violent crimes.  The state had eliminated parole for most offenders in the 1990s to keep serious offenders off the streets but as Democrat Senator David Marsden notes, “People are now more likely to believe that people deserve a second chance.”

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Part of a 2016 California ballot measure adopted by the voters to speed the death penalty process is now being enforced, but it won’t result in any executions.  Louis Casiano of Fox News reports that the provision of Proposition 66 that allows the state to house condemned inmates in other prisons rather than keeping them on Death Row at San Quentin, will be implemented this year.  Inmates on Death Row must request a transfer and be evaluated to determine if they can be moved to another prison.  One of the initiative’s authors, CJLF Legal Director Kent Scheidegger, told reporters “One of the arguments made against the death penalty was it cost too much to house them at San Quentin, which is an antique facility.”

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NY Cops At War With de Blasio:  Following the enactment of several measures keeping criminals on the streets and last weekend’s shooting of two New York police officers by a repeat violent offender,  one police union has declared war on the city’s Mayor.  Greg Norman of Fox News reports that a fiery tweet from the head of the Sergeant’s Benevolent Association declared “NYPD cops have been assassinated because of you.”   The most recent shootings targeted police in a patrol vehicle, injuring one officer, then the same suspect walked into the precinct and began firing, injuring a lieutenant, only to surrender when he ran out of bullets.  The suspect, habitual felon Robert Williams, was free on parole after a 2002 attempted murder conviction, and had been rearrested in 2018 for fighting with police, and was released from custody pending trial.

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A largely unnoticed bill introduced last December in the House of Representatives (H.R.5383) called the “New Way Forward Act” would repeal federal laws which punish illegal immigration and protect illegal alien criminals from deportation.  Katy Grimes of the California Globe reports that the bill, which is sponsored by 44 House Democrats including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Karen Bass of California, “rolls back harmful immigration laws that, for decades, have led to racial profiling and disproportionately resulted in incarceration….” according to proponents.  As Rep. Jesus Garcia of Illinois noted the bill would break the “prison to deportation pipeline.”  While this measure has no chance of passage, some might be concerned that 10% of the members of the House of Representatives would like to see this bill become law.  With the exception of Fox News, no national news organization has bothered to report on this measure.