criminal conviction

AB 600 – Everything You Need To Know About The New Law

March 20, 2024 | by The Justice Firm

In the last few years, the California legislature has made an effort to rectify the devastating results of the state’s traditionally tough on crime policies. The laws enacted during the tough on crime era resulted in exceptionally long sentences, mass incarceration, and overcrowding of prisons. At the same time, research has shown that not only has public safety not improved, but these laws have also had an especially devastating impact on disadvantaged communities.

AB 600 was signed into law by Governor Newsom on October 8, 2023, and came into effect on January 1, 2024. The new law provides changes to PC 1172.1 and expands the authority of judges to initiate resentencing. Prior to the enactment of AB 600, courts’ authority to recall a sentence was limited to 120 days following the date of commitment to state prison or county jail or with the recommendation of the district attorney or the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).

Now, AB 600 allows courts to recall a sentence and initiate resentencing at any point in time, if the sentencing laws applicable at the time of sentencing have subsequently changed, including sentencing enhancement laws, strike laws, or any other sentencing rules.

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AB 256 – Everything You Need To Know About It

December 13, 2023 | by The Justice Firm

In the last few years, numerous studies have shown that racial biases and discrimination have been widespread across California’s criminal justice system. It is undisputed that, in the last few decades, California’s tough on crime policies have disproportionately affected marginalized communities and people of color. For example, in its 2020 report, the Committee on the Revision of the Penal Code found that gang enhancements have been applied inconsistently and have disproportionately affected communities of color. Moreover, the report specifically states that in Los Angeles, 98 percent of people who received gang enhancements were people of color.

In 1987, in McClesky v. Kemp, the U.S. Supreme Court limited courts’ ability to address systemic discrimination by requiring defendants to prove purposeful discrimination by more than statistical disparities. Unfortunately, the Court failed to recognize the reality that most systemic biases are unintentional and throughout the years have been more damaging than occurrences of outright racism. As a result, the decision by the Court left thousands of defendants without recourse.

Fortunately, as part of the ongoing effort to rectify the troubling and devastating effects that California’s laws and policies have had on minority communities and to redress the McClesky decision, in 2020, the State legislature passed AB 2542, which prohibited the state from seeking a conviction or a sentence on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin. Recognizing that AB 2542 did not go far enough, in 2022, the California legislature passed AB 256 or the Racial Justice Act for All. The new bill provided a staggered timeline for defendants with cases in which final judgment was entered before January 1, 2021, to seek relief. Moreover, AB 256 expands the type of evidence that defendants can present and requires courts to consider the totality of the evidence and not only statistical evidence.

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Recent Changes To Sentencing Enhancements In California

November 30, 2023 | by The Justice Firm

One of the main principles of our criminal justice system is that the punishment has to fit the crime. However, in the 1990s, California’s leaders pursued very actively tough on crime policies and during that time more than a hundred different sentencing enhancements were enacted. Throughout the past three decades, these enhancements have added many years to the prison terms of majority of inmates. As a result, currently, California hosts the second largest prison population behind Texas.

Overwhelming evidence has demonstrated that sentencing enhancements have not been the successful deterrent to crime they were designed to be, but even more than that, they have failed to improve public safety and have resulted in unnecessarily long mass incarcerations and inequity. As a result, in the last several years, California’s leaders and legislatures have worked hard to correct the harm caused by unjust and disproportionately long sentences. Some of the most important laws that were enacted include SB 1393, AB 2942, and SB 81.

SB 1393 or The Fair and Just Sentencing Reform Act of 2018, reformed the law on one of the most commonly used sentencing enhancements in California, namely the 5-year enhancement given for each prior serious felony conviction when a person is currently charged with a serious felony. Prior to 2019, the law specifically prohibited judges from using their discretion to dismiss the 5-year enhancement for prior serious felony. That changed with the enactment of SB 1393. SB 1393 eliminated the mandatory application of the prior serious felony enhancement and allowed judges to use their discretion to strike the enhancement in furtherance of justice.

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SB 731 – California’s New Law on Conviction Sealing

September 25, 2023 | by The Justice Firm

It is estimated that at least 70 million people in the United States have a record of an arrest or conviction. In California alone, an estimated 8 million people have to live with a criminal record, and in 2018, an estimated 2.5 million Californians of working-age had a felony record. These figures have cost the state approximately $20 billion in gross domestic product annually.

In California, an individual’s criminal record is kept until a person reaches 100 years of age, even though most people with a criminal record had long paid their debt to society. The effects of a criminal record have always been enormous, but this is truer then ever in today’s world where the use of background checks is more widespread than ever. As a result, a quarter of the state’s population is facing numerous barriers to building and having a decent life. The presence of a criminal record prevents people from entering certain careers, obtaining housing, long-term employment, and participating fully in civic life. Most notably, the consequences of a criminal record have historically affected minority communities disproportionately and have been a leading driver of recidivism and perpetual poverty.

For years now, California has been at the forefront of Criminal Justice Reform and has been adopting numerous measures in an attempt to rectify the effects of the tough on crime policies of the past. As part of the ongoing efforts to reform that the California policymakers have embarked on, and recognizing the devastating consequences a criminal record can have on a person’s ability to reintegrate into society, they passed SB 731. Governor Newsom signed the bill into law on September 29, 2022, and the bill became effective on July 1, 2023.

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SB 1393 – The Fair and Just Sentencing Reform Act of 2018

September 18, 2023 | by The Justice Firm

Despite the ongoing efforts by California’s leaders to improve the State’s criminal justice system and to make it fairer, California still has some of the most severe sentence enhancements in the United States.

One of the main principles of the criminal justice system is that the punishment has to fit the crime. Unfortunately, California’s hyper punitive policies enacted in the 1980s and 1990s, resulted in a serious distortion of one of the most basic legal standards of the criminal justice system. By the end of the 1990s, California’s legislature had managed to enact more than one hundred different enhancements, which have added years to the prison sentences of majority of inmates. The State’s aggressive sentencing enhancement laws have led to mass incarceration, overburdening of the state’s budget, and most importantly, have disproportionately affected marginalized and minority communities and their economies.

There have been numerous studies on enhancements that have shown that adding time to an already lengthy sentence has not been a successful deterrent to crime and has not had a positive impact on public safety. In line with these studies, the California legislature has been working hard to enact laws that will prevent the application of indiscriminate sentence enhancements while still allowing judges to impose harsh and lengthy sentences when the conduct demands it.

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SB 567 Explained

September 6, 2023 | by The Justice Firm

The United States of America has the largest prison population in the world. Not only does the US have more incarcerated people than even China, but the United States account for roughly 25 percent of the world’s total prison population, and within the country, California ranks second behind only Texas.

The mass incarceration in California has not only caused prison overcrowding, but has also had a devastating impact on the State’s budget, as the annual cost per prisoner is over $100,000. The tough on crime policies of the 1990s have not only led to overcrowding of California’s prisons and a strain on the State’s budget, but they have also proved counterproductive and have had a detrimental impact on countless of inmates and their families, and have disproportionately affected marginal and minority communities.

Fortunately, in the last several years, California’s leaders have recognized than many of the State’s sentencing laws have not only failed to effectively serve their intended purpose of increasing public safety, but more than that, they have led to excessively punitive sentences, unnecessarily long incarcerations, and overall inequities.

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AB 256 – The Racial Justice Act for All

July 17, 2023 | by The Justice Firm

In the last few years, California’s legislature has been at the forefront of enacting laws aimed at reforming the State’s criminal justice system and rectifying the injustices and the disproportionate effect that some of the State’s policies have had on marginalized and minority communities.

As part of the ongoing effort to fight the biases and racial discrimination that have been prevalent in our criminal legal system, in 2020, the California legislature passed AB 2542, or the Racial Justice Act, which came into effect on January 1, 2021. The law prohibited the state from obtaining or seeking to obtain a criminal conviction or imposing a sentence on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin. The landmark law was a step in the right direction and was welcomed by criminal justice reform advocates.

Prior to the passing of AB 2542, proving racial biases was almost impossible. In the 1987 decision McClesky v. Kemp, the U.S. Supreme Court imposed an unreasonably high burden on defendants to prove racism in criminal cases. In short, the Court required defendants to prove intentional discrimination and held that statistical disparities are not enough to show a constitutional violation.

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PC 1473.7 Motion To Vacate

May 7, 2023 | by The Justice Firm

Non-citizens, including lawful permanent residents, can experience profound immigration consequences for even minor or very old criminal convictions. Prior to 2017, California law only allowed defendants to challenge their conviction while they were in actual or constructive custody, i.e. parole or probation. As a result, countless people were left with no recourse and way of challenging their convictions. This gap has had a particularly devastating impact on the state’s immigrant community.

Throughout the years, many immigrants in California have entered a plea or have been convicted at trial, without being properly informed of the immigration consequences of a criminal conviction. And for most non-citizens, the immigration consequences of a conviction only come to light when they find themselves in immigration court facing deportation, which, in many instances, can be years after they had completed their criminal sentence. In most of those cases, the only way for a non-citizen to avoid deportation and to remain in the United States is to challenge their criminal conviction. However, because California law did not provide a post-conviction relief for people who were no longer in custody, many people have been unjustly deported, or at best, have been stuck in the backlogged immigration system for years.

Recognizing that there are a large number of immigrants in California who have already finished serving their sentences, but who have not received the proper legal advice about the impact their convictions could have on their immigration status, the California legislature enacted Assembly Bill 813, which was codified as PC 1473.7, and became effective on January 1, 2017. Essentially, the new law gave people who were no longer in custody the ability to challenge their criminal convictions and vacate their judgments. Initially, the law was limited to convictions that were the result of a plea of guilty or nolo contendere. However, in 2021, the state legislature passed AB 1259, which amended PC 1473.7. As a result, as of January 1, 2022, the law now also provides a post-conviction relief for non-citizens who were convicted at trial.

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The Los Angeles District Attorney’s New Immigration Policy

December 15, 2022 | by The Justice Firm

A criminal conviction can have a life changing and potentially devastating impact on anyone. However, under federal law, certain offenses are considered deportable, including controlled substance offenses, crimes of moral turpitude, and aggravated felonies. So, for noncitizens, a criminal conviction brings with it potentially very grave collateral immigration consequences. In many instances, the individuals who are convicted of qualifying offenses, have spent their entire adulthood in the United States, have build their lives and have families here, and have no other place they would call home. Yet, following a criminal conviction, noncitizens face the threat of ending up in immigration court to face a potential removal and deportation to a strange country and permanent separation from their families.

Fortunately, in light of the adverse immigration consequences noncitizens face, some district attorneys are starting to adjust their offices’ immigration-related policies, including the Los Angeles District Attorney, George Gascon. On December 6, 2022, Mr. Gascon issued a new special directive outlining the new immigration policies of the LA District Attorney’s Office, which, among other things, is aiming to address the overly punitive consequences accused noncitizens could face.

First, according to the new policy, prior to when a charging decision is made, any person who is under investigation or their attorney, can present information demonstrating the potential adverse immigration consequences that could follow. In such cases, all charging determinations by the DA office should be made with the goal of avoiding or mitigating any adverse consequences a charge could have, and if there are possible alternatives to charges being filed, the DA office should pursue those alternatives. In addition, the new policy encourages prosecutors to expand the use of pretrial diversion programs that do not require an admission of guilt.

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Gubernatorial Pardon Explained

November 7, 2022 | by The Justice Firm

What is a pardon – Eligibility and Benefits

The effects of a criminal conviction do not end once an individual has served their sentence. In fact, the consequences of a criminal conviction can last forever and can impede the rest of a person’s life. Fortunately, the California Constitution gives the governor the power to grant clemency in the form of a sentence commutation or a pardon. While a commutation is directed at people who are still serving a sentence, a pardon is designed to reward people who have shown that they have been fully rehabilitated after serving their sentence for a criminal conviction.

In general, anyone who had been convicted and has completed his or her probation or parole for a California state criminal offense can apply for a Governor’s pardon. The only exceptions are for individuals who have been impeached, as well as those convicted for crimes in other jurisdictions or for federal crimes.

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