By The Times Editorial Board
Aug. 27, 2024
Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
The crime-and-punishment debate has shifted again. Republican politicians generally want to end the reform era and return to tougher punishments. Democrats are split between continuing reform and retrenchment. That’s the background of a heated debate over state Senate Bill 94, a worthy proposalby Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San José) to review sentences for several hundred aging California prisoners who were sent to prison for life without parole before June 5, 1990, in the pre-reform era.
Life without parole, nonexistent in California until 1978 and rarely used for more than a decade after, became standard after 1990s ballot measures made the sentence mandatory for some crimes.
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