Free Republic

California will reconsider life sentences for up to 4,000 nonviolent third-strike criminals by allowing them to seek parole under a ballot measure approved by voters two years ago, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday. The state will craft new regulations by January to include the repeat offenders in early release provisions. Gov. Jerry Brown also will not appeal a court ruling that the state is illegally excluding the nonviolent career criminals from parole under the 2016 ballot measure he championed to reduce the prison population and encourage rehabilitation. The state parole board estimates between 3,000...

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Allen Sumner on Friday said California must consider early parole for thousands of sex offenders, the Associated Press reported. About the Lawsuit Janice Bellucci, a Sacramento attorney and president of Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws, was the one who filed the lawsuit on behalf of sex offenders. According to Bellucci, the rules the CDCR were putting in place directly conflicted "with the ballot measure's language and voter's intent in approving Proposition 57." From the Associated Press: Bellucci argued the measure requires earlier parole consideration for any sex crime not on the state's narrow...