Noting positive results from notable prosecutor-initiated resentencing program in California

Regular readers know I am a big fan of second-look sentencing mechanisms, which I have been writing about in various ways in various fora for many years.  Here are a couple of posts I authored last year at the Sentencing Matters Substack that provide some links and context regarding some of my thinking on the topic:

• Envisioning a second-look sentencing agenda for the US Sentencing Commission
• Should Second Look Efforts Focus Particularly on Drug Offense Sentences?

I provide this background in conjunction with highlighting this new press piece headlined “California’s Resentencing Program Shows Financial and Social Benefits, Study Finds.”  The piece discusses a big new RAND report about a pilot resentencing program in California.  Here are excerpts:

Micah recalled the moment she got a second chance.  In 2023, more than two decades after prosecutors sent her to prison on a drug conviction that triggered the state’s three-strikes law, she received an envelope from the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office.  She was baffled.

“There was like a little Post-it note in there — contact an attorney or your attorney,” said Micah, who was serving a 28-year-to-life sentence when she received the notice.  “I’m thinking, man, it’s been 24 years. I can’t think of anything that I could be charged with!”

Micah, who now works at a charitable thrift shop in Contra Costa County, is among a relatively small group of people who were released thanks to a state-funded program that encourages district attorneys to resentence incarcerated people serving long prison terms that many now consider excessive.

From 2021–23, the California County Resentencing Pilot Program provided nearly $13 million to counties to help encourage the reevaluation of long sentences.  Nine counties in the state participated, including Contra Costa, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties in the Bay Area….

Of the 50,000 people incarcerated in the participating counties, courts ultimately resentenced 227 people and released 174, according to a report published in February by RAND, the California-based nonprofit selected by the state Legislature to independently evaluate the pilot….

In 2018, California legislators passed AB 2942 in an effort to pursue major criminal justice reform. The law redefined the purpose of sentencing for public safety to include punishment, rehabilitation and restorative justice. The bipartisan law allowed district attorneys to recommend courts reconsider old cases, including those associated with violent crimes….

The state spends about $133,000 per incarcerated person annually in state prison, making resentencing cases a source of financial savings.  According to the RAND report, the state would have needed to reduce each of the 174 released individuals’ sentences by just 1.2 years to break even, considering the millions invested by the state and counties in the pilot program.  The results exceeded that number: About three-quarters of those considered for resentencing had served more than 10 years in prison, and the majority still had more than five years to go.

RAND’s report also recommends more clearly defined roles to improve cooperation between prosecutors and public defenders, better timelines and a dedicated court for resentencing hearings.