Support for giving parolees the right to vote is misguided

Chesa Boudin, who is running to be San Francisco's next district attorney, says he supports restoring parolee voting rights to end "a practice that makes second-class citizens of people who have paid their debt to society." ("End Racist Voter Suppression and Restore the Right to Vote," July 8). This assertion takes a series of arguments and assumptions that don't belong together and packages them in a way that is plainly disingenuous.

Boudin is referring to Assembly Constitutional Amendment 6 which, along with Assembly Bill 646, would restore voting rights to all people on parole in California. This is not unlike what San Francisco's outgoing district attorney, George Gascon, did with Proposition 47, or as its proponents' called it, "The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act." That initiative, which Gascon supported, had nothing to do with neighborhoods, schools or even safety. Proposition 47 did one big thing: It turned felony theft and drug offenses into misdemeanors -- for all purposes. And it left the government virtually impotent to effectively curtail either one of those problems. Property crime went up, especially in San Francisco -- which now has the highest robbery, property and larceny crime rates of any county in the state. Proposition 47 didn't make our neighborhoods or schools safer -- rather, it made criminals safer from the threat of incarceration.

Boudin demonizes what he refers to as "felony disenfranchisement." But that debate is over. California already automatically restores voting rights to felons who complete their state prison terms and parole periods. When Boudin attacks "felony disenfranchisement" circa 1849, he's talking about something we eliminated in 1974. And justly so. He also asserts that the state, as a matter of practice, makes a parolee a "second-class citizen" when it suspends his voting rights. Wrong. That parolee made himself a second-class citizen when he broke the law, was convicted of a felony, and was sentenced to state prison. That's not the state's fault; it's his own.

Boudin suggests that convicted felons have completely "paid their debt to society" the moment they leave prison and transition to parole. Wrong again. Parole is early release from prison; it doesn't mean that the parolee has been "rehabilitated." Parolees are still supervised by parole officers, subject to additional restrictions on movement and travel, subject to search and seizure without probable cause, and can be returned to prison if they violate the terms and conditions of parole. Inhibiting one's right to vote is not discordant with these restrictions.

Perhaps most troubling for someone like me -- a former public defender and a career prosecutor -- is Boudin's idea that felons pay their "debt" simply by finishing a prison term. Wrong. Felons have breached our social contract. They've hurt people, physically, financially or emotionally. Serving a state prison term or completing parole is one thing; paying one's "debt to society" -- one incurred when willingly choosing to break the law -- is something else entirely. For example, how much did it cost to investigate the crime? How much ongoing harm did the victim suffer because of the crime? Does the felon still owe the victim restitution for damages, including medical care or loss of property? How much did it cost to prosecute the felon, to house and feed him while he was incarcerated, and to help him reintegrate into his community? How much free services provided by the public defender's offices were doled out to the felon? How much does it cost for the parole officers to check up on him while he is on parole? It seems to me that this "debt to society" is much larger than Boudin contemplates.

Parole is a period in which we scrutinize a felon's reentry into society to see if they can adjust to freedom; if they can behave appropriately in the community; and, most importantly, refrain from hurting people. A felon can and should earn a restoration of voting privileges, but only after he has demonstrated that he can stay out of trouble and lead a crime-free life. That's what parole is for.

The undeniable truth at the heart of this debate is that convicted felons who have been sentenced to state prison have exercised horrendous judgment. They chose to hurt people. That alone suggests that their decision-making processes are impaired. They should forfeit the essential right to make decisions that affect other people until they thoroughly and completely prove they are entitled to reclaim it by living a law-abiding life. For some, specifically that small percentage who commit heinous crimes, like murder, for which they will be on parole for the rest of their lives, well, hopefully that will never happen. And that's the way it should be.

Somehow "punishment" has become a bad word. Candidates like Boudin have replaced it with concepts like "restorative justice." I've done this work for more than 30 years. I've defended hundreds of accused criminals. I've also prosecuted rapists, serial molesters, murderers and other unredeemable sociopaths. I believe that we should eliminate racism in our criminal justice system. I would argue that every single prosecutor I've ever worked with believes the same thing. Boudin doesn't have a unique claim to that argument, he just distorts it in order to pander to the only audience that would give his spin credence.

I don't think the term "felon" is racist and I don't think the term "punishment" is racist and I don't think taking away the right to vote from felons is racist. I think the impact of the law denying the right to vote to felons should apply to all felons -- which it does. If people if color are unjustly and wrongly prosecuted, we need to address that, not the consequences of their conviction if they are justly prosecuted. To me it is not whether denying the right to vote has a disproportionate impact on a specific population, because that is not what makes it racist. The question is whether the felon, whatever his race or gender or religion, was justly convicted, investigated, prosecuted and punished.

The new crop of extreme progressives not only no longer wants to punish them, or take their freedom away, but they want to treat them like all the other citizens who obey laws and work hard. To me, this is just antithetical to commonsense and wrong to good and decent people.

The opinion expressed herein is totally my own and not, to my knowledge, the opinion of my office.