ABSTRACT
CRACKS IN THE DAM A dramatic change in the legal situation of California lifers is occurring. The U.S. Federal Courts have been vacating the denials of parole based on the lifers’ crime or their pre-conviction behavior as “some evidence” that their release represents an unreasonable risk to public safety. In earlier cases, Biggs v. Terhune and Irons v. Carey,73 Federal Courts held that the crime loses its power to be a predictor of future dangerousness as the prisoner serves more time. In recent years, California Courts, particularly the California Court of Appeals for the 4th District, have been ruling in cases in which the prisoner has served more than their minimum sentence that the crime alone is not a sufficient factor in establishing that the individual is a danger to public safety.74 Most recently, in the case of In re Sandra Davis Lawrence, the Court of Appeals of the State of California, 2nd District, vacated the governor’s reversal of the Board of Prison Terms (BPT)’s fourth recommendation that Lawrence be released on parole. The governor had used Lawrence’s crime as his main reason for reversing the parole board’s decision. He wrote, “But as stated in my 2004 decision, the murder perpetrated by Ms. Lawrence demonstrated a shockingly vicious use of lethality and an exceptionally callous disregard for human suffering because after she shot Mrs. Williams-four times-causing her to collapse to the floor,
Ms. Lawrence stabbed her repeatedly.”75 The court disagreed with the governor’s characterization of her crime and her lack of remorse, and decided that “Lawrence’s commitment offense, now over 30 years in the past and after nearly a quarter century of incarceration, does not provide ‘some evidence’ her present release would represent an ‘unreasonable risk’ of danger to the community.”76
