Ron Matthias and Dolores Carr have this op-ed within the San Jose Highlight with the above title.
Since August, native judges have been nullifying murderers’ demise sentences one after the other. However there’s an issue: The regulation the judges have been counting on to scale back these demise sentences doesn’t apply to demise sentences. And that’s not the one downside.
It’s simple for judges to make errors once they’re listening to just one aspect of the story, and that’s what occurred right here. The reductions are coming on the insistence of Santa Clara County District Legal professional Jeff Rosen, who has just lately found he doesn’t like capital punishment. Unsurprisingly, the murderers really feel the identical method.
California regulation has a major problem with statutes that successfully allow prosecutors to nullify present sentences once they merely disagree with the regulation beneath which the perpetrator was correctly sentenced years earlier than. An initiative is sorely wanted to repair this and different associated issues, constructing on the success of the hassle to enact Proposition 36 this yr.
Right here is the bioblurb on the finish of the article:
Ron Matthias labored as a deputy district legal professional and later deputy legal professional normal over his 35-year profession as a prosecutor. He was the statewide capital case coordinator within the California Legal professional Normal’s Workplace from 2007 till he retired in 2019. Dolores Carr was the district legal professional of Santa Clara County from 2006 to 2010 and served as a decide on the Superior Courtroom from 2000 to 2006 and once more from 2011 to 2018. Earlier in her profession she labored in non-public apply and was a deputy district legal professional for 15 years.