Opinion: Hundreds of Individuals have been wrongly convicted
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Anderson represents District 2 on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors and was awarded “Legislator of the 12 months” by the California Innocence Mission in 2017 when he was a state senator. He lives in Alpine.
Think about you’ve got spent the final decade in a state jail for a criminal offense you didn’t commit. There are such a lot of authorized hurdles you would need to overcome to show your innocence, to not point out a large number of people that consider you’re responsible. Now think about, after years of struggling in opposition to the system, you lastly are exonerated and let loose. The place do you go? What do you do?
Though this situation is a uncommon one, it does occur due to our imperfect authorized system. There have been 3,315 documented circumstances of wrongful convictions in the US, in line with the Nationwide Registry of Exonerations.
The circumstances complete over 29,100 years misplaced unjustly to jail.
I first met the nice folks on the California Innocence Mission — a authorized program based mostly in San Diego — after they reached out to me in 2016. On the time, I used to be serving within the California state Senate. That’s after they shared with me the story of Kim Lengthy.
Kim was wrongfully convicted of second-degree homicide in Riverside County and sentenced to fifteen years to life in jail in 2005. Greater than a decade after her unique sentencing, Kim had new forensic pathology and DNA proof proving her innocence. Though this new proof led to the discharge of Kim in 2016 on bail, it wasn’t till a California Supreme Courtroom determination in 2020 that the court docket as soon as and for all tossed out Kim’s homicide conviction.
Previous to her wrongful conviction, she was working as a nurse. When the California Innocence Mission reached out to my workplace in 2016, my crew and I labored to get Kim a listening to with the California Board of Registered Nursing in hopes of getting her license reinstated. She remains to be attempting to get her license again.
Working with the California Innocence Mission opened my eyes to the hardships that exonerated folks face, each whereas serving within the jail system and as soon as exonerated and let loose. Along with the assistance of the California Innocence Mission, I launched two payments that have been later signed into regulation by Gov. Jerry Brown to make issues higher.
Senate Invoice 1134 was signed in 2016, to make it simpler for wrongfully convicted folks in California to make use of new proof — equivalent to DNA proof — to show their innocence. Beforehand, it was troublesome for wrongfully convicted folks to fulfill the usual of proof, which acknowledged that proof wanted to “level unerringly to innocence.” Below this new regulation, folks imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit solely have to show that the brand new proof would have greater than doubtless led to an acquittal of the crime had it been accessible on the unique trial.
Senate Invoice 335 was signed into regulation in 2017. It expanded the eligibility of wrongfully convicted folks to obtain transitional providers after their launch from jail. These providers embody housing help, job coaching, psychological well being providers and extra. In 2015, an earlier regulation had expanded the transitional providers that the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation should present to inmates who’re leaving the jail system to incorporate exonerated folks. Nonetheless, that regulation was written so narrowly that exonerated folks couldn’t really profit from it, utilizing the “factors unerringly to innocence” language that Senate Invoice 1134 had corrected. Senate Invoice 336 amended this language to make re-entry providers accessible to a wider group of those that are exonerated.
These payments obtained unanimous help in each the Senate and Meeting.
It’s uncomfortable to confront the imperfections of the justice system, and I’m pleased with the bipartisan work we’ve completed to proper among the wrongs of the previous. It’s unfair that exonerated folks put their belief within the system to show their innocence, just for it to fail them. And, importantly, if the unsuitable individual is serving time, the actual perpetrator is on the market harming our group.
That’s why policymakers have to make it possible for we’re working with companion organizations such because the California Innocence Mission to determine alternatives the place the system might be improved.
Since my time within the state Legislature, further payments have been signed into regulation that additional assist exonerated folks. I cherish the work that we completed collectively within the Senate, and I’m glad that a few of my payments paved the way in which for future laws to assist those that have been wrongfully convicted. I hope that sooner or later I’ll have the chance to contribute extra in direction of making the justice system work for all Californians.
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