Criminal justice bills approved by Legislature

Bills that limit the state felony murder rule and prohibit young teenagers from being sentenced in adult criminal court are headed to Gov. Jerry Brown after being approved by the Legislature.

SB 1391 would amend Proposition 57 and reverse a 1995 law that said 14- and 15-year-olds can be tried as adults while SB 1437 eliminates the felony murder rule for accomplices who didn’t intend to be involved in a killing, except for the deaths of peace officers.

Both bills passed the state Senate on concurrence votes Thursday after the Assembly amended them.

The juvenile sentencing law is part of a package of bills from Sens. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, and Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, that target racial inequality in the judicial system.

They include SB 1050, which provides services for exonerated people after they are released from prison and is awaiting review by the Assembly Public Safety Committee after the Senate unanimously approved it.

Mitchell said SB 1391 is based on science and results.

“Research has verified for us that 14 and 15 year olds are not pint-sized adults,” she said in a news release.

Lara said policymakers “know better now that youth are still developing and have a greater capacity to change.”

The bill passed the Senate 23-15 on May 30 then passed the Assembly 41-23 on Wednesday. The Assembly amended it to exempt juvenile crime suspects who aren’t apprehended until they are adults. The Senate concurred with the amendment 22-15 on Thursday.

“This is important in making sure a perpetrator is held accountable, even if a victim does not come forward until later,” Lara said.

Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Tehama, urged his colleagues to vote no.

“These are young people, but the things they do are really bad,” Nielsen said. “There must be some accountability. .. We must not turn our backs on that and say it didn’t happen.”

Lara emphasized that kids won’t go free. Rather, they’ll go to a youth detention center that is “not some sort of hotel or vacation” but has rehabilitative services. He noted studies have established “black and brown children are more likely to be sent to the adult system.”

Meanwhile, SB 1437 passed the Senate 26-11, also on May 30, but faced a tougher battle in the Assembly, which approved it 42-36 on Wednesday. The Senate concurred with the Assembly’s amendments 27-9 on Thursday. The bill was authored by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Oakland, and Sen. Joel Anderson, R-El Cajon.

Kate Chatfield, policy director for Re:store Justice, one of the bill’s lead sponsors, said the law addresses “an antiquated legal doctrine that other states have abolished completely or reformed.”

“It’s been a call from thoughtful legal scholars and judges and lawyers that California needs to pull itself out of the past and have a criminal justice system that connects individual responsibility with moral culpability,” Chatfield said, referencing a quote by the late state Supreme Court Justice Stanley Mosk.