Eighteen new crime-related laws have been signed by the governor.
- AB 256 by Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San Jose) – Criminal procedure: discrimination
- Makes the California Racial Justice Act of 2020 retroactive to 2020. The CRJA prohibits the state from obtaining a conviction or sentence on the basis of race, ethnicity or national origin. Now, petitions can be filed to dismiss older cases. “Given our state’s troubled history of prosecuting and incarcerating people of color at much higher rates than the general population, it is imperative that we afford a mechanism for retroactive relief so our criminal justice system can begin to reckon with systemic racism and correct past injustices,” Kalra said in a report.
- Passed the Assembly 46-25, and the Senate 30-10.
- Sens. Connie Leyva (D-Chino), Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), Richard Roth (D-Riverside), and Assemblymembers Jose Medina (D-Riverside), Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside), Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) voted for the bill.
- Sens. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) and Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore), and Assemblymembers Phillip Chen (R-Yorba Linda), Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta), Thurston Smith (R-Hesperia), Chad Mayes (I-Rancho Mirage) and Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) voted against the bill.
- Assemblymembers James Ramos (D-Highland) and Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona) did not vote.
- AB 1744 by Assemblymember Marc Levine (D-Marin County) – Probation and mandatory supervision: flash incarceration
- Allows 10 days of incarceration in county jail after violation of parole. This is already allowed, but the government’s right to do it expires Jan. 1. This bill expires in 2028. “Flash incarceration is a tool that can be used to help deter future violations of court-ordered probation by imposing a length of detention of one to 10 days in county jail,” Levine said in a report.
- Passed the Assembly 75-0, and the Senate 37-3, with all IE representatives in support.
- AB 1924 by Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D-Carson) – Criminal law: certificate of rehabilitation
- Allows people to petition to file for certificates of rehabilitation and a pardon, if they have not been incarcerated after their release. Existing law already allows this for sex offense misdeameanors. “AB 1924 would make it easier and more efficient for an individual who is truly rehabilitated, to obtain a Certificate of Rehabilitation so that they can become a productive member of society,” said the California Public Defenders Association in a report.
- Passed the Senate 30-10, and the Assembly 48-20.
- Sens. Connie Leyva (D-Chino), Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) and Richard Roth (D-Riverside), and Assemblymembers Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside), Chad Mayes (I-Rancho Mirage) and Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) voted for the bill.
- Sens. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) and Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore), and Assemblymembers Phillip Chen (R-Yorba Linda), Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta), Thurston Smith (R-Hesperia) and Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) voted against the bill.
- Assemblymembers James Ramos (D-Highland), Jose Medina (D-Riverside) and Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona) did not vote.
- AB 2085 by Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) – Crimes: mandated reporters
- The bill passed the Assembly 62-5 and the Senate 31-1.
- Sens. Connie Leyva (D-Chino), Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) and Richard Roth (D-Riverside), and Assemblymembers James Ramos (D-Highland), Jose Medina (D-Riverside), Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona), Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside), Chad Mayes (I-Rancho Mirage), Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) voted for the bill.
- Sens. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) and Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore), and Assemblymembers Phillip Chen (R-Yorba Linda), Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta), Thurston Smith (R-Hesperia) and Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) did not vote.
- AB 2167 by Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San Jose) – Crimes: alternatives to incarceration
- Requires courts to consider justice court programs, diversion programs, restorative justice and probation, in addition to incarceration, when deciding punishments. “Overall, alternatives to incarceration can lead to reduced prison and jail costs, lower recidivism rates, and is one way to address harmful racial disparities in the criminal justice system,” Kalra said in a report.
- The bill passed the Assembly 42-23 and the Senate 27-9.
- Sens. Connie Leyva (D-Chino), Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), and Assemblymembers Jose Medina (D-Riverside), Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) voted for the bill.
- Sens. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) and Assemblymembers Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore), and Phillip Chen (R-Yorba Linda), Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta), Thurston Smith (R-Hesperia), Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) voted against the bill.
- Sens. Richard Roth (D-Riverside) and Assemblymembers James Ramos (D-Highland), Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona), Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) and Chad Mayes (I-Rancho Mirage) did not vote.
- AB 2169 by Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D-Carson) – Criminal procedure.
- Expands the ability of people convicted of non-violent offenses while they were a victim of human trafficking, intimate partner violence or sexual violence, to petition the court to vacate their conviction. Currenlty, they must demonstrate that they did not intend to commit the offense. Under the new law, they no longer must prove they are trying to distance themselves from the perpetrator of the human trafficking scheme to have their conviction vacated. “AB 2169 will ensure that non-citizen survivors, like their citizen counterparts, are able to use vacatur remedies to eliminate the ongoing consequences of old, legally invalid convictions and arrests,” wrote the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice in a report.
- Unanimously passed both houses.
- AB 2321 by Assemblymember Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer Sr. (D-Los Angeles) – Juveniles: room confinement.
- Juveniles in juvenile facilities now cannot be confined for more than two hours, and must have reasonable access to toilets at all hours.
- Unanimously passed both houses.
- Assemblymembers James Ramos (D-Highland), Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona) and Thurston Smith (R-Hesperia) did not vote.
- AB 2417 by Assemblymember Philip Ting (D-San Francisco) – Juveniles: Youth Bill of Rights.
- Expands the Youth Bill of Rights to youth in any juvenile justice facility, not just those run by the state. Requires ombudsman
- Unanimously passed both houses.
- Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta) did not vote.
- AB 2418 by Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San Jose) – Crimes: Justice Data Accountability and Transparency Act.
- Requires prosecuting offices to collect and transmit data about each criminal case’s charge, arrest, plea bargain’s terms, bail, diversion court program and case disposition.
- “Despite the extraordinary power district attorneys wield, they report very little public data on critical decisions such as charging rationale and demographics of those charged. This lack of transparency has only allowed racial bias to proliferate within the criminal legal system leading to the vast overrepresentation of people of color in California’s prison population,” Kalra said.
- Passed the Assembly 58-12, and the Senate 30-7.
- Sens. Connie Leyva (D-Chino), Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), Richard Roth (D-Riverside), and Assemblymembers James Ramos (D-Highland), Jose Medina (D-Riverside), Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona), Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside), Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) voted for the bill.
- Sen. Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) and Assemblymembers Phillip Chen (R-Yorba Linda), Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta), Thurston Smith (R-Hesperia), Chad Mayes (I-Rancho Mirage) voted against the bill.
- Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) and Assemblymember Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) did not vote.
- AB 2657 by Assemblymember Mark Stone (D-Scotts Valley) – Incarcerated person’s competence.
- Requires death penalty convicts to be examined by three psychiatrists or psychologists to determine they are competent enough to be executed. “AB 2657 authorizes California courts to act in a timely fashion to remove permanently incompetent people, who are ineligible for execution, from death row, and instead resentence them to life in prison without the possibility of parole,” Stone said in a report.
- Passed the Assembly 56-17, and the Senate 30-10.
- Sens. Connie Leyva (D-Chino), Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) and Richard Roth (D-Riverside), and Assemblymembers James Ramos (D-Highland), Jose Medina (D-Riverside), Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona), Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) and Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) voted for the bill.
- Sens. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) and Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore), and Assemblymembers , Phillip Chen (R-Yorba Linda), Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta), Thurston Smith (R-Hesperia) and Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) voted against the bill.
- Assemblymember Chad Mayes (I-Rancho Mirage) did not vote.
- AB 2658 by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda) – Juveniles: electronic monitoring.
- Allows a day of home detention under electronic monitoring to count against a juvenile’s term of confinement. “AB 2658 will ensure we are not overly punishing youth, and bringing them up to parity with adults, by allowing them to receive custody credits toward their sentence when on electronic monitors and also requires data collection to better understand how our actions are resulting in real-life outcomes for these youth,” said Bauer-Kahan in a report.
- Passed the Assembly 56-12 and the Senate 28-10
- Sens. Connie Leyva (D-Chino) and Richard Roth (D-Riverside), and Assemblymembers James Ramos (D-Highland), Jose Medina (D-Riverside), Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona), Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside), Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) voted for the bill.
- Sens. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) and Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore), and Assemblymembers Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta) and Thurston Smith (R-Hesperia) voted against the bill.
- Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), and Assemblymembers Phillip Chen (R-Yorba Linda), Chad Mayes (I-Rancho Mirage) and Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) did not vote.
- AB 2778 by Assemblymember Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) – Crimes: race-blind charging.
- Requires the Department of Justice to develop “Race-Blind Charing” guidelines which would result in prosecutors redacting all means of identifying races of suspects, victims or witnesses before filing charges. “We’ve seen it time and time again where a person of color is given a harsher punishment for the same crime a non-person of color commits. Creating a system where a person’s race is unknown during the time of initial charging is imperative,” McCarty said in a report.
- Unanimously passed both houses.
- SB 731 by Sen. María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) – Criminal records: relief.
- The bill passed the Assembly 46-22 and the Senate 28-10.
- Sens. Connie Leyva (D-Chino) and Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), and Assemblymembers Jose Medina (D-Riverside), Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), Chad Mayes (I-Rancho Mirage) and Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) voted for the bill.
- Sens. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) and Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore), and Assemblymembers Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta), Thurston Smith (R-Hesperia) and Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) voted against the bill.
- Sen. Richard Roth (D-Riverside) and Assemblymembers James Ramos (D-Highland), Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona), Phillip Chen (R-Yorba Linda) and Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) did not vote.
- SB 903 by Sen. Robert Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) – Prisons: California Rehabilitation Oversight Board
- Allows a judge to reduce an offense from a felony to a misdemeanor or a misdemeanor to an infraction even if the defendant has an unfulfilled order of restitution or a restitution fine. “Because successful re-entry into society for formerly incarcerated people benefits the broader community, SB 1106 ensures that expungement petitions aren’t denied simply due to outstanding restitution debt,” Hertzberg said in a report.
- Unanimously passed both houses.
- SB 1106 by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) – Criminal resentencing: restitution
- The bill passed the Assembly 47-22 and the Senate 26-11.
- Sens. Connie Leyva (D-Chino) and Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), and Assemblymembers Jose Medina (D-Riverside), Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside), Chad Mayes (I-Rancho Mirage) and Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) voted for the bill.
- Sens. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) and Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore), and Assemblymembers Phillip Chen (R-Yorba Linda), Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta), Thurston Smith (R-Hesperia) and Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) voted against the bill.
- Sen. Richard Roth (D-Riverside), and Assemblymembers James Ramos (D-Highland) and Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona) did not vote.
- SB 1223 by Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) – Criminal procedure: mental health diversion
- Lowers the threshold for pretrial diversion for defendants with mental disorders. Under the new law, a diagnosis of a mental disorder by a mental health expert is enough for a judge to divert a trial for two years. Previously, the court would have to find that the individual suffered from a mental disorder. The trial could be diverted for two years for a felony charge, and one year for a misdemeanor charge. According to Becker, California’s mental health diversion law has been underused because of its narrow requirements.
- The bill passed the Assembly 48-17 and the Senate 30-8.
- Sens. Connie Leyva (D-Chino), Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) and Richard Roth (D-Riverside), and Assemblymembers James Ramos (D-Highland), Jose Medina (D-Riverside), Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) and Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) voted for the bill.
- Sen. Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) and Assemblymembers Phillip Chen (R-Yorba Linda), Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta), Thurston Smith (R-Hesperia), Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) voted against the bill.
- Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa), and Assemblymembers Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona), Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) and Chad Mayes (I-Rancho Mirage) did not vote.
- AB 2147 by Assemblymember Philip Ting (D-San Francisco) – Pedestrians
- Decriminalizes jaywalking. The Assembly report on the bill started with the case of Kurt Reinhold, whom an Orange County sheriff’s deputy fatally shot because he jaywalked Sept. 23, 2020. The report says African Americans are disproportionately stopped by law enforcement for jaywalking.
- The bill passed the Assembly 51-16 and the Senate 29-7.
- Sens. Connie Leyva (D-Chino), Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) and Richard Roth (D-Riverside), and Assemblymembers Jose Medina (D-Riverside), Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) and Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella), Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) and Chad Mayes (I-Rancho Mirage) voted for the bill.
- Sen. Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) and Assemblymembers Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale), Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta) and Thurston Smith (R-Hesperia) voted against the bill.
- Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) and Assemblymembers James Ramos (D-Highland), Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona) and Phillip Chen (R-Yorba Linda) did not vote.
- AB 2799 by Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles) – Evidence: admissibility of creative expressions
- Requires the court to determine whether “creative expression,” including rap lyrics, should be allowed as evidence in a trial in a closed hearing that considers racial bias, and the possibility of injecting prejudice into the proceeding.
- Passed the Assembly 76-0 and the Senate 38-0.
- Sen. Richard Roth (D-Riverside) did not vote.
