As she promised a week ago, state Sen. Loni Hancock today will introduce a bill to abolish California’s death penalty.

The bill would replace capital punishment with life without possibility of parole. Hancock, D-Berkeley, who chairs both the Senate Public Safety Committee and the Budget subcommittee overseeing prison spending, will gut and amend her SB 490 to carry the language. It’s expected to have its first hearing at 9:30 a.m. next Tuesday, July 5, in the Assembly Public Safety Committee.

If passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor, the bill would still require voters’ approval as a Legislature-sponsored initiative in November 2012. That coincide with the high-turnout presidential general election; the state’s significant Democratic voter registration edge means a somewhat more liberal electorate would decide the issue.

Hancock will discuss the bill in a live interview with host Jeffrey Callison on Capitol Public Radio’s “Insight” at 10 a.m. this morning.

“Capital punishment is an expensive failure and an example of the dysfunction of our prisons,” Hancock said in a news release issued late last night. “California’s death row is the largest and most costly in the United States. It is not helping to protect our state; it is helping to bankrupt us.”

Hancock announced her legislation after the Los Angeles Times reported last week on a new study highlighting capital punishment’s high cost in California: $4 billion since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978, although only 13 executions have occurred since then while the number of condemned inmates has swelled to 714. The report, “Executing the Will of the Voters: A Roadmap to Mend or End the California Legislature’s Multi-Billion-Dollar Death Penalty Debacle,” was written by U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Arthur Alarcon, a former prosecutor, and Loyola Law School professor Paula Mitchell. It will be published this week in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review.

An Oakland-based human rights nonprofit is waging an online drive urging California’s Division of Juvenile Justice to immediately stop extensive isolation of youth prisoners.

A declaration filed May 24 in an Alameda County Superior Court lawsuit regarding conditions at DJJ prisons included documentation that some youth inmates aren’t receiving the minimum three hours per day of out-of-room time that they should.

“(T)he most frequent failure to meet out-of-room requirements has occurred at Ventura Youth Correctional Facility,” Nancy Campbell, a court-appointed special master in the case, wrote in a May 20 memo. “In the 14 weeks documented, there were 173 out of 1,453 incidents during which youth on TD (temporary detention) or TIP (temporary intervention plans) spent more than 21 of 24 hours confined to his or her rooms. Other DJJ facilities struggle to meet mandated services requirements as well.”

More than a dozen members of Books Not Bars, a campaign of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, have children who have spent 23-plus hours a day locked up in cold cells with little human contact and zero programming.

“The DJJ abuses my son by keeping him in solitary confinement. The last time I saw him, he had bruises on his face and he couldn’t hold a conversation with me. How could they do this to our children?” Books Not Bars member Maria Sanchaz said in a news release; her son is locked up in the Ventura facility.

Books not Bars says the special master’s report also indicates DJJ is failing to provide youth inmates with the minimum education required every day and, due to high levels of institutional violence, is canceling medical appointments without rescheduling them.

“The use of solitary confinement is one of the most egregious violations we’ve seen from California Division of Juvenile Justice,” Ella Baker Center Executive Director Jakada Imani said in a news release. “Extensive isolation amounts to torture and trauma for our youth- the exact opposite of the rehabilitation the DJJ is tasked with providing. Californians should be outraged that Secretary Matthew Cate is allowing this dangerous and abusive practice to persist.”

This video posted last year by DJJ paints a rosier picture of life at the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility, and includes some views of the youth inmates’ rooms:

Yesterday was a banner day for Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Alameda. Besides the human trafficking bill on which I’ve written an article, he had another unanimously passed bill that would increase educational opportunities available in state prisons.

AB 216 would create incentives and remove restrictions for community colleges to offer courses in state correctional facilities. Swanson said this is especially important in light of the recent U.S. Supreme Court order requiring California’s unconstitutionally overcrowded prisons to reduce their inmate population by 46,000.

“Education is a critical component to rehabilitating inmates and ensuring their successful transition back into society,” Swanson said in a news release. “AB 216 is part of a larger re-entry strategy that will address the Supreme Court mandate and the safety of our communities by significantly reducing the likelihood that released inmates will commit new crimes.”

California spends more than $49,000 per year to house each inmate, only to see many re-offend and cost their communities even more, he said. “It is better for our state to invest money upfront on training and educating inmates who will eventually be released into our communities, rather than have them re-enter society without the tools necessary to keep them off the streets and out of prison.”

The Assembly voted 79-0 Tuesday to pass the bill and send it on to the state Senate.

Gov. Jerry Brown brought the ax down today at the state prison system’s headquarters, eliminating 400 jobs to save $30 million.

The cut at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation‘s head office returns its bureaucratic workforce to 2005 levels, so that it now accounts for less than 5 percent of CDCR’s total workforce; 600 other headquarters positions already had been eliminated in the past 18 months.

“This is a long overdue action to make CDCR more efficient while cutting costs,” Brown said in a news release.

CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate said the “new executive structure is designed to create a leaner organization, clarify functions and responsibilities, delegate decision-making authority and eliminate duplicative functions.”

The governor’s office says this restructuring includes cutting 32 executive-level positions including the chief of staff, deputy chief of staff and five chief deputy secretaries. More than 100 manager and supervisor positions will be eliminated, increasing responsibilities in many areas for those remaining. This round of cuts affects more than 90 personnel classifications.

California is abuzz about the U.S. Supreme Court’s order this morning that the state must shed tens of thousands of inmates from its unconstitutionally overcrowded prison system.

From Gov. Jerry Brown:

“The Supreme Court has upheld a lower court’s decision that California must reduce its prison population. In its ruling, the Supreme Court recognized that the enactment of AB 109 is key to meeting this obligation. We must now secure full and constitutionally guaranteed funding to put into effect all the realignment provisions contained in AB 109. As we work to carry out the Court’s ruling, I will take all steps necessary to protect public safety.”

From California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro:

“The reason for this unfortunate Supreme Court decision lies with those in charge of the California legislature for the last two decades. While the Democrat leadership has wasted $23,000 per Assembly and Senate bill on thousands of unnecessary bills each year, not to mention wasteful programs, they have failed in their most basic obligation to keep Californians safe by building adequate prisons. Now that neglect is taking the form of the forced release of 46,000 prisoners. It is a dereliction beyond shameful.”

From ACLU of Northern California Executive Director Abdi Soltani:

“Reduction of prison populations is necessary not only to meet the Constitutional standards required by the Supreme Court, but also to balance prison spending with other priorities as we solve the remaining $10 billion state budget deficit. Felony sentences should be for people who have committed serious crimes – not simple drug possession or writing $450 worth of bad checks.”

From Asemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber:

“The court’s decision is an egregious travesty of justice. I agree with Justice Scalia who called the decision ‘perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history’ This decision will result in hundreds of thousands of crimes being committed against our citizens as criminals are released who will then face lesser to no consequences for their continued criminality.

“California citizens must now be more concerned with the safety of their families. Their government and courts are offering less concern.”

Lots more, after the jump…
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Gov. Jerry Brown just announced he’s canceling plans to build new housing for condemned inmates at San Quentin State Prison.

“At a time when children, the disabled and seniors face painful cuts to essential programs, the State of California cannot justify a massive expenditure of public dollars for the worst criminals in our state,” he said in a news release. “California will have to find another way to address the housing needs of condemned inmates. It would be unconscionable to earmark $356 million for a new and improved death row while making severe cuts to education and programs that serve the most vulnerable among us.”

Planning for a new condemned inmate housing facility at San Quentin began in 2003 under Gov. Gray Davis and continued under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The facility was designed to hold 1,152 inmates, allowing for future growth in the condemned population; California currently has 713 condemned inmates, of whom 42 are from Alameda County and 18 are from Contra Costa County.

Brown’s office says the project would have added another $356 million to the state’s debt, at an annual cost of $28.5 million in debt service that would have come out of General Fund dollars.

UPDATE @ 3:08 P.M.: From state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco:

“Governor Brown should be praised for his thoughtful decision to reject the ill-conceived plan to build a new death row inmate complex at San Quentin, which would have cost the state more than $1.6 billion over the next decade,” said Senator Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. “Given the severity of our budget crisis, it makes no sense to spend millions of General Fund dollars every year on this wasteful plan. We have known for a long time that the project has deep flaws, including inexcusably high construction and operating costs and the fact that the complex is likely to run out of space just three years after it opens.

“Working with the Senate Budget Committee, which I chair, we included budget bill language requiring the question of double bunking of death row inmates to be legally resolved before the project proceeded. Lacking this resolution, the Condemned Inmate Complex expansion would have reached capacity within three years of its completion, leaving taxpayers with a billion dollar hangover. I thank Assemblymember Jared Huffman for his commitment and partnership in stopping this mistake.”

From the Twitter feed of state Sen. Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach:

Guv wants new way 2 address condemned inmate housing. Execute em. Problem solved

I co-authored a story in last Friday’s Tribune about how “tough on crime” – a phrase always subject to interpretation, but well-worn enough in modern politics almost to be considered cliché – is in a state of flux as fiscal conservatives start to say that locking them up and throwing away the key doesn’t make sense anymore.

Today, I see more evidence that this is so, and more strange bedfellows as a result. Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, Bush Administration Education Secretary Rod Paige and former American Conservative Union Chairman David Keene will join NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous on Thursday to launch a campaign to influence state budgets and federal policy in order to reduce incarceration.

“We need to be ‘smart on crime’ rather than ‘tough on crime’ and address soaring incarceration rates in this country,” Jealous said in a news release. “Failing schools, college tuition hikes and shrinking state education budgets are narrowing the promise of education for young people all across the country. Meanwhile, allocations for our incarceration system continue to increase, sending our youth the wrong message about their future.”

Thursday’s rollout of the NAACP’s report entitled “Misplaced Priorities: Under Educate, Over Incarcerate” will take place at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a pair of bills into law yesterday that he says will fundamentally change California’s correctional system to halt the costly and inefficient “revolving door” of low-level offenders and parole violators through state prisons.

“For too long, the state’s prison system has been a revolving door for lower-level offenders and parole violators who are released within months—often before they are even transferred out of a reception center,” Brown said in his AB 109 signing message. “Cycling these offenders through state prisons wastes money, aggravates crowded conditions, thwarts rehabilitation, and impedes local law enforcement supervision.”

AB 109 changes the law to realign certain responsibilities for lower level offenders, adult parolees and juvenile offenders from state to local jurisdictions; the governor’s office says it will give local law enforcement the right and the ability to manage offenders in smarter and cost-effective ways. It won’t go into effect until a community corrections grant program is created by statute and funding is appropriated. “I will not sign any legislation that would seek to implement this legislation without the necessary funding,” Brown said.

No strange bedfellows here, however: GOP lawmakers have opposed Brown’s effort to secure funding for this realignment. “In the coming weeks, and for as long as it takes, I will vigorously pursue my plan to balance the state’s budget and prevent reductions to public safety through a constitutional guarantee,” Brown said.

Brown’s office was careful to note that when AB 109 is implemented, no inmates currently in state prison will be released early; all felons sent to state prison will continue to serve their entire sentence; all felons who are convicted of a serious or violent offense — including sex offenders and child molesters — will still go to state prison; and felons who are not eligible for state prison can serve their sentence at the local level.

UPDATE @ 1:47 P.M.: Assembly Budget Committee Vice Chairman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, underscored his caucus’ opposition to this bill with a news release today.

“Governor Brown signed AB 109 after sunset yesterday the so-called Public Safety bill, which is everything but that. It was appropriate that he chose to sign this abominable legislation as dark descended on California.

“This legislation turns California’s Criminal Justice System profoundly, in favor of criminals, and unarguably places all of us and our families at vastly greater risk to become victims of crime.

“Upwards of 68,000 un-rehabilitated, unremorseful criminals will be in our communities, largely unsupervised, without even bare minimum rehabilitative opportunities and greatly diminished, if any, consequences for their continued victimization of Californians.

“The governor signed the bill even though there is no funding to pay local government for the burden being dumped on them.

“It would appear to be a cynical ploy to coerce Legislators and the people of California to support tax increases. In fact, AB109 is now the most compelling reason to oppose these taxes – starving this beast of a bill before it’s unleashed.

“I urge all Californians to speak loudly and long against this ill-conceived travesty of justice.”

But prison-reform advocates aren’t crazy about the bill either.

“This plan is a shell game that would simply shift corrections costs from the state to the counties without addressing the real problem: California is locking up too many people for low-level offenses for too long,” Allen Hopper, police practices director with the ACLU of Northern California, said in a news release. “The massive cost of incarceration is robbing the people of California of vitally needed services, including education and healthcare. What we need is real sentencing reform, such as shortening the sentences for simple possession drug crimes. It’s time for California to stop wasting hundreds of millions of dollars incarcerating people who pose no threat to public safety.”

“This plan would allow people to be locked up in local jails for up to three years, triple the current limit. Research consistently shows that longer sentences do not produce better outcomes. In fact, shorter sentences coupled with re-entry and prevention tactics are both more effective and more cost-effective,” said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, deputy state director in Southern California for the Drug Policy Alliance. “We’re talking about people convicted of low-level offenses, like drug possession, prostitution and petty theft, often related to a drug problem. But the plan doesn’t include a dime for drug treatment or mental health care. In fact, the governor has proposed reducing funds for those services.”

“Any California corrections reform must include sentencing reform,” said Kris Lev-Twombly, director of programs at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. “A felony conviction is a life-long sentence that should not be applied to low-level offenses. No matter how old the conviction, people with a felony on their record will face significantly diminished employment opportunities and much lower lifetime earnings. They may also be prohibited from accessing student loans, food stamps and other public assistance. This works against individual, family and community wellbeing and public safety.”

State Senate Public Safety Committee Chairwoman Loni Hancock introduced a bill today that would strip the sworn peace-officer status from attorneys and auditors at the state Office of the Inspector General, the independent agency watchdogging the state prison system.

Hancock, D-Berkeley, says her SB 490 would save the state $3.7 million by eliminating the more generous benefits, training and equipment – including guns and cars – provided to the OIG’s 105 attorneys and auditors. In contrast, fewer than five of the Attorney General’s 1,200 attorneys and auditors have peace-officer status.

“This bill starts the process of eliminating the abuse of peace office status in state government and the resulting waste of taxpayer dollars,” Hancock said in a news release. “I want to insure that the Office of the Inspector General continues to carry out its work in a cost-effective manner. I do not believe that peace officer status for their attorneys and auditors is necessary.”

A report issued Nov. 30 by the Senate Office of Oversights and Outcomes entitled, “Gun-toting Auditors and Attorneys: Does the Inspector General Need 105 Armed Peace Officers?” found that outfitting each attorney and auditor with guns, holsters, handcuffs, ammunition and related equipment costs more than $2,000 per employee. The report also found their state-issued cars logged more than 700,000 miles for home-to-work commutes at no cost to the employees, representing about 70 percent of their total mileage.

The state Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee today unanimously approved a motion from Hancock – who chairs its Subcommittee on Corrections, Public Safety and the Judiciary – to reduce the OIG’s budget by $3.4 million and reduce the number of sworn officers in the agency to 25 for the 2011-12 fiscal year.

OIG Chief Deputy Inspector Donald Currier told the Los Angeles Times last November that the office is willing to give up the guns and cars but not its peace-officer pensions, as the job still has risky assignments. “They’re not typical police duties, like CHP officers pulling people over all the time who they don’t know,” Currier said, “but their job is to ferret out criminal wrongdoing in prisons, including abuse of force by correctional officers.” The Times noted, however, that the state Senate report indicated other auditors who investigate criminal wrongdoing at public agencies do so without peace officer status.

UPDATE @ 4:55 P.M.: Hancock’s office clarified that her bill would prevent future OIG hires from getting the more generous pension plans available to peace officers, but current workers’ pensions are legally protected under current agreements. The $3.7 million figure doesn’t include any pension savings, just training and equipment.

Arnold Schwarzenegger on his last day as California’s governor has commuted the state prison sentence of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez’ son, who was involved in a fatal stabbing in 2008 near San Diego State University.

Esteban Nunez was serving a 16-year term in connection with the death of Luis Dos Santos.

“Santos’s death is tragic, and I do not discount the gravity of the offense. But given Nunez’s limited role in Santos’s death, and considering that, unlike (Ryan) Jett, Nunez had no criminal record prior to this offense, I believe Nunez’s sentence is excessive,” the governor wrote. “Accordingly, I commute Nunez’s sentence to the lower term for the crimes for which he was convicted: seven years in State prison.”

The commutation cites Nunez’ probation report in noting that he and his friends had been drinking and were turned away from a fraternity party before Jett picked a fight with Santos and Brandon Scheerer. “Not surprisingly, there are different versions of the fight. However, the following key facts are not in dispute: During the fight, Jett stabbed Santos once through the chest, severing his heart,” the commutation says, noting Nunez admitted to stabbing someone else in the stomach; Nunez, Jett and their friends then fled to Sacramento, where they burned their clothes and threw their knives in the Sacramento River.

Nunez, then 19 and with no previous record, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter with the use of a knife, as well as to assaulting and inflicting great bodily injury upon two other people; he was sentenced to a total of 16 years in state prison. Nunez applied for a commutation of his sentence on the ground that his sentence is disproportionate in comparison to the sentence for Jett, who actually inflicted the mortal wound upon Santos.

“Considering Nunez’s limited role in the killing and his clean prior criminal record, I believe his sentence is disproportionate in comparison to Jett’s. The lower terms for voluntary manslaughter (three years) and assault with a deadly weapon (two years each) would be more appropriate in light of these differences,” Schwarzenegger wrote.

UPDATE @ 5:50 P.M. MONDAY: Lots more on this today here.

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared ready today to endorse a lower court’s order calling on California to move thousands of inmates out of its overcrowded prisons so that those who remain get adequate health care, the Associated Press reports (via the Washington Post).

The justices heard an extended argument in a case over long-standing violations of constitutional rights in a state prison system that last year averaged nearly a death a week that might have been prevented or delayed with better medical care.

A decision in Plata v. Schwarzenegger (SCOTUS docket here, historical documents here)will come by next summer, but stakeholders are weighing in today.

From David Fathi, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project:

“Gov. Schwarzenegger has acknowledged that prison overcrowding increases recidivism while creating ‘conditions of extreme peril’ that threaten the health and safety of staff and prisoners alike. Our public safety is jeopardized by overcrowded prisons, in which high-risk prisoners don’t rehabilitate and low-risk prisoners learn new criminal behavior. It is far past time to abandon failed ‘get-tough’ ideologies and invest in policies that are rooted in evidence, fiscal prudence and common sense.”

From Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, deputy state director for the Drug Policy Alliance in Southern California:

“One of the primary reasons that the state’s prisons are dangerously overcrowded is that California continues to lock up thousands of people each year for low-level drug possession. There is no basis in evidence or principle to expose people to this dangerous environment simply for the possession of a small amount of illicit substances. California must follow the lead of other states like Texas and New York and stop sending people to state prison for drug possession, which can be handled as a health issue safely, effectively and affordably in the community.

“The state currently spends $500 million a year to incarcerate 10,000 people for nothing more than personal drug possession. That does not include the unknown number of parolees who have been returned to prison for a few months based on the results of a drug test. This is a terrible waste of scarce resources. Treatment in the community is effective and affordable. Unfortunately, California this year eliminated funding for community-based treatment for drug possession arrestees.

“People who use drugs do not belong in the state’s cruel and costly prisons simply for that personal use. We urge California to take the logical step of ending incarceration as a response to drug possession, while expanding opportunities for drug treatment in the community.”