Sacramento County Jim Cooper joined Inside California Politics this week to discuss his efforts to change the state’s elderly parole program.
Under state law, inmates 50 and older who have served 20 years of their sentence are eligible for parole, except for those sentenced to death or life without parole.
This program came into the spotlight recently in the Sacramento area after two convicted child rapists were granted parole. David Allen Funston, who had been sentenced to multiple life sentences for sex crimes against children as young as three, was going to be released before the DA filed new charges in an effort to keep him behind bars.
Cooper is looking to make those convicted of sex crimes against children ineligible for the program.
“I believe in second chances, but not for child molesters,” Cooper told host Nikki Laurenzo.
On Wednesday, Cooper held a press conference where he annoucned a ballot initiative aimed at amending the laws regarding parole that came into effect when voters passed Prop. 57 in 2016.
“The promise was, ‘Hey, Prop. 57, we’re going to pass it and get out low-level offenders to give them a second chance. And for sure it will not include violent or sex offenders’,” Cooper said. “We were told that. They were adamant about that. It passes by the voters because the voters are duped. The legislature puts on a ballot. Lo and behold, the courts rule it includes everyone. You can’t exclude anyone. So now letting out sex offenders and murderers, too.”
The sheriff said that he understands Gov. Gavin Newsom doesn’t have the power to directly intervene in the parole process for these cases, but that he hoped to work with him on changing the law.
“His hands are tied,” Cooper said. “I’d love to partner with him and help get law change.”
The governor has already said he is open to reform.
“I do think, in the context of those issues being highlighted, there’s some reforms that we should advance — as it relates to transparency through an en banc process and making sure that we know who voted in what direction,” Newsom said at a press conference earlier this month.
Cooper also shared that his motivation to push for the ballot initiative was partly personal.
“I’ve got four kids and a grandkid,” Cooper said. “My grandson’s three years old. Funston’s victim was three years old, his youngest victim. That really hit home for me, that I can’t sit by and not do anything. I gotta do something. So I said, I’m gonna do a ballot initiative.”
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