A Los Angeles-based nonprofit is claiming California prison officials have undermined last fall’s ballot measure to overhaul the state’s parole process by excluding sex offenders from consideration for early release.
The Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws, which advocates for the rights of those convicted of sex crimes and their families, says the exemption — written into newly released guidelines to implement Proposition 57 — “impermissibly restricts and impairs the scope” of the initiative.
Those regulations were released in March and won initial approval from state regulators a month later. But the original ballot measure did not exclude inmates convicted of sex crimes from the chance of getting an earlier hearing before the state parole board.
The group filed the lawsuit in late April against the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and its director, Scott Kernan. It argues the new rules are unconstitutional and it asks a judge to order corrections officials to withdraw and repeal them, according to the complaint filed in Sacramento County.
“We want the benefits of Proposition 57 to be provided to people who have been convicted of ‘non-violent’ sex offenses,” said attorney Janice Bellucci, who is representing the alliance and an inmate who brought the case forward. “It is a basic rule of law that regulations cannot be broader than the law that they are implementing.”
A spokesperson for the corrections agency said neither Kernan nor the department could comment on the pending litigation.
Debate over the treatment of sex offenders under Proposition 57 has simmered since last fall’s campaign season. But at that point, the outcry came from law enforcement officials and prosecutors who argued they did not want to see the ballot measure’s benefits extended to rapists and child molesters.
The sweeping initiative, approved by 65% of voters, gave new power to the State Board of Parole Hearings to grant early release to prisoners whose primary sentences are for crimes not designated as “violent” under California law. It also provided new ways for all inmates to earn time credits toward their sentences for good behavior and for enrolling in certain career, rehabilitation and education programs.
Opponents of Proposition 57 warned that the list of crimes under the violent felony penal code was short and porous, inspiring efforts in the Legislature this session to expand the definition of what constitutes a violent crime under state law. ..Continued.. by Jazmine Ulloa Contact Reporter
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