JUDGE RULES CALIFORNIA IS VIOLATING THE RIGHTS OF MURDERERS BY KEEPING THEM IN PRISON FOR AN EXCESSIVE LENGTH OF TIME

Hmm, how could a judge come up with a ruling that California violates the rights of imprisoned murderers? Oh, I know why. The judge is from San Francisco.

CALIFORNIA AGREES TO SET MINIMUM TERMS FRO MURDERERS
By Paige St. John

Los Angeles Times
December 16, 2013

SACRAMENTO -- Facing allegations that California keeps convicted murderers and others serving life-with-parole terms in prison an excessive time, the state has agreed to set initial minimum sentences for those inmates.

The deal is part of a settlement over the case of a Soledad prison inmate who challenged California's parole policies for those in prison on open-ended sentences.

The agreement was signed Monday by state Appeals Court Justice J. Anthony Kline, a San Francisco jurist who questioned the constitutionality of California's long prison stays in a previous case. It does not take full effect, though, until Kline issues a decision on whether the 46-year-old prisoner who had filed the appeal should be paroled.

State prison population reports show nearly 35,000 inmates serving sentences of life with the possibility of parole as of the beginning of the year, including 8,800 inmates sentenced to life for third-strike felonies. State parole records show that 670 were granted release last year, though Gov. Jerry Brown reversed 71 of those decisions.

The issue in the legal challenge was which comes first: public safety or a prisoner's right to a fair sentence. In California's current system, a murderer sentenced to 25 years to life must wait until a parole board determines he is no longer a threat before that minimum sentence is set. By then, critics allege, most convicts have overstayed the minimum sentence based on their crime.

A 2011 Stanford study found that murderers eligible for parole at 16 years (because of good-behavior credits) wound up serving an average 27 years behind bars.

The settlement requires the Board of Parole Hearings to set those minimum sentences at their first parole eligibility hearing.