The CRISES Act would fund emergency response programs that are not handled by police. Governor Newsom blocked the bill last year, but now advocates are pushing for a redo.
Gascón is battling a lawsuit, filed by his own line prosecutors and backed by the state DA association, against his criminal justice reforms.
The measure may pave the way for more sheriff candidates who want to challenge mass incarceration, but are currently banned from running.
Proposition 25 would replace the current system with an even more punitive one, some criminal justice reform groups say.
The state has not had a justice with experience as a public defender since the mid-1980s.
California just made it harder for prosecutors to exclude Black people from jury trials, amid broader reforms against racial discrimination in courtrooms.
Prosecutors across the country are rethinking their membership in professional organizations that oppose a meaningful reform agenda.
“We’re at a watershed moment for criminal justice reform,” Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, said about Measure R and LA’s upcoming DA election.
California’s DA association responded to a critic in a letter signed by nearly all prosecutors. But this may only exacerbate worries about DAs’ tendency to talk in a single political voice.
Rossi rules out seeking the death penalty or prosecuting sex work. “Oftentimes justice may mean a restorative outcome. Oftentimes justice may mean never filing a case,” she said in a Q&A.
“The problem is that LA County has come to a place where they use the most expensive and the most intrusive tools of the criminal justice system to deal with every behavior,” Gascón said in a Q&A.
New laws signed by Governor Newsom target private prisons, and fines and fees, the power of DAs, and more.
Checking-in on the politics of prosecutors: A Vermont state’s attorney makes waves, and California and Florida prosecutors plan on dismissing more drug charges
California imposes a moratorium and the New Hampshire House votes to abolish it. But in Iowa, lawmakers mull reinstating it.
Police transparency, marijuana expungement, and more: Jerry Brown signed a series of reforms that just went into effect, but their implementation hinge in part on local officials.
Fines and fees are one of the many ways in which the criminal legal system places the heaviest burden on communities of color.
Los Angeles holds rare runoff for sheriff in a department rocked by scandals Daniel Nichanian Numerous scandals have hit the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department this year. In September, The Appeal reported about mounting allegations of abuse by the department’s deputies. In early October, the Los Angeles Times published an investigation into racial profiling that found that 69 percent of […]
Will Orange County continue circumventing California’s ‘sanctuary state’ law?
California adopted a wave of criminal reform legislation on Sept. 2018. Some takeaways.
California reformed its “felony murder” rules, and also adopted two laws to make it easier to review past sentences.
Candidates disagree on the county’s cooperation with ICE and on the treatment of young defendants.
An analysis of California, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Utah in the 2018 midterms