Everyday Injustice

Last year Assemblymember Ash Kalra authored a landmark bill that addresses racial discrimination in criminal sentencing and convictions. The California Racial Justice Act, which will prohibit racial discrimination in convictions and sentences. The act will prohibit it in all convictions and sentences. It also creates a process to challenge racial bias in trial or following conviction.

“California’s Civil Rights law clearly prohibits discrimination in housing, in employment, and public accommodation,” he explained last year. “But nowhere in California law is there a clear statement that racial discrimination will not be tolerated in our criminal justice system.

One compromise he made to get the bill passed was there was no look back mechanism. This year he introduced AB 2542 which allow for the act to apply retroactively.

He explained, “While passing last year’s bill was a major step towards addressing institutionalized and implicit racial bias in our courts, the work is not done. It is incumbent upon us to make sure that all Californians are afforded an opportunity to pursue justice by making the measure retroactive—ensuring that these new protections are rightfully extended to those who have already been harmed by unfair convictions and sentences.”

Listen as the Assemblymember explains the Racial Justice Act and why it’s needed.

When the California Supreme Court ruled in March in the Humphrey decision, that the judges are required to consider a person’s ability to pay when setting their bail amounts, a big question was whether that would lead to more pretrial release or whether judges would simply detain more people without bail, citing a public safety concern.

In a new policy brief released in late May by the nonpartisan California Policy Lab, the early results show that when San Francisco was required to set more affordable bail amounts, judges in San Francisco chose to release more people to intensive supervision programs instead.

This new analysis provides a preview of what may happen in other counties after the California Supreme Court applied that decision to the rest of the state earlier this year.

Talking about this study and what it means is Dr. Johanna Lacoe, Research Director at the California Policy Lab, and a co-author of the analysis.

Sacramento area Attorney Keith Staten, heads up the Sacramento Conflict Counsel joins Everyday Injustice to discuss policing and his reaction to the Chauvin verdict.

He also discusses issues in Sacramento, problems with the Community Police Review Commission as well as some of the high profile cases like Joseph Mann and Stephon Clark.

Last week, Larry Krasner who was among the first wave of progressive DA’s to be elected in 2017, won a resounding reelection in the Democratic primary after a former Deputy DA, who he had fired in 2018, attempted to take him down with the help of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP).

However, he won with 65 percent of the vote.

The primary was widely seen as referendum on whether a wave of prosecutors elected on promises of criminal justice reform – elected on things like bail reform, reducing the incarcerated population, police accountability, and more – would be blamed for rising crime.

Everyday Injustice reached out to NYU Law Professor Rachel Barkow, author of the book, Prisoners of Politics: Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration and ACLU Director of their National Political and Advocacy Department, Udi Ofer to discuss what the victory means for the national movement and for the prospects of Chesa Boudin and George Gascon in California, both of whom face recall from similar forces.

Cynthia Rodriguez, a retired public defender is running for DA in Yolo County, California - a relatively small county, next to Sacramento and the home of UC Davis.

She is taking on four time incumbent Jeff Reisig. In 2018, Reisig narrowly averted defeat when he beat Public Defender Dean Johansson by a very narrow margin.

Reisig has recently taken on a reformist tone, though he signed onto the letter by Ann Marie Schubert opposing good time credits that would lead to an early release of incarcerated people, he is a support of AB 1542 which reformers worry would create mandatory treatment for drug addicts, and he has spoken out strongly against zero bail.

Listen as Rodriguez talks about Reisig's record and discusses her own reformist agenda.

On May 6, the Vanguard held a special live webinar featuring LA District Attorney George Gascón and Alameda Public Defender Brendon Woods on Policing and Race in America.

Listen as two leaders in criminal justice reform discuss the conviction of Derek Chauvin, what has and has not changed since Rodney King and the future of policing.

La Tasha Williams is running for judge in Dauphin County Pennsylvania. She interned in a public defender’s office and has worked as a prosecutor most recently.

According to her campaign page: “I am running to be your next judge on the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas because I am deeply committed to being a positive change agent in our system of justice. If elected, I promise to consistently bring to the courtroom my integrity, compassion, and experience which will ensure that all parties receive fair treatment and equity. I promise to treat all parties with dignity and respect, to include the pro se litigant who is oftentimes navigating unfamiliar waters. I will work towards eliminating the incidence of wrongful convictions, promoting earlier intervention for abused & neglected vulnerable populations, advancing alternatives to incarceration for chemically dependent persons, and exposing children living in dysfunctional homes to healthy life choices.”

Listen as she discusses her candidacy and the criminal legal system on Everyday Injustice.

Recent polling by Data for Progress for the Appeal taken between March 5 and March 7 found public opinion since the murder of George Floyd has shifted to support for alternatives to policing and the ways in which communities can reimagine safety outside of armed officers.

They found, “As many as half of the individuals killed by law enforcement have a disability; and people with an untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed during a police encounter. Emergency First Responder (EFR) programs differ from place to place, but the purpose is the same: armed law enforcement is often not the best tool for responding to a range of requests for emergency assistance.”

A new national poll from Data for Progress and The Lab, a policy vertical of The Appeal, “shows overwhelming support among likely voters for creating non-police emergency first responders to handle emergency calls that involve mental health issues, substance use disorders, health and safety check-ins, and people experiencing homelessness—and to reallocate law enforcement funding in order to do so.”

To discuss these polling results, Everyday Injustice spoke with Alana Sivin and Emily Galvin-Almanza of the Appeal.

Alana Sivin is a Senior Legal Analyst and Co-Host of Appeal Live. She previously served as Senior Legislative Counsel to the Criminal Justice Committee at the New York City Council, where she focused primarily on drafting legislation intended to reduce incarceration and improve jail conditions. Prior to that experience, she worked as public defender at New York County Defender Services in Manhattan, where she represented indigent New Yorkers charged with crimes.

Emily Galvin-Almanza is a Senior Legal Analyst and Co-Host of Appeal Live. She worked as a public defender for most of a decade, first in California and then in New York. Emily is also the co-founder and executive director of Partners For Justice, a nonprofit that trains and places college graduates in public defenders’ offices to fight the enmeshed penalties of legal-system involvement, obtain access to vital services, and make low-income community members’ voices heard.

*The interview was conducted after the death of Daunte Wright but before the verdict in the Derek Chauvin case.

In less than 100 DAs, Manhattan will elect a new DA which would only be the fifth in the last 80 years, replacing four term incumbent Cy Vance.

There are a host of progressive candidates vying for the Democratic nomination including Assemblymember Dan Quart.

Earlier this month, Dan Quart release his public safety plan and one of his commes was: “We do not have to choose between a fairer and a safer city.” We really have created this kind of false dichotomy - where people have bought into this notion that if we reform the system, we become less safe.”

Listen as Quart talks about his plan and burning issues like police reform and Rikers Island.

George Ryan was a Republican Governor of Illinois. He started his career as an advocate for the death penalty. But during his time as Governor, between cases of wrongful convictions and a torture scandal in Chicago, he came to the conclusion that the death penalty was flawed and first he put a pause on the death penalty, then he commuted the sentences of everyone on death row to life and ended the death penalty in Illinois.

He writes: “I realized that capital punishment was a bad idea, not because there weren’t cases where death was arguably a fit punishment, but because we would never design a legal system able to identify only the right cases for execution.”

Last fall, he and journalist Maurice Possley published the book, "Until I Could Be Sure" which captured his thinking as he transformed from advocate to crusader against the death penalty.