Schwarzenegger lenient with murderers

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(An interesting article. It illustrates the point that bourgeois
politicians often go against the party line when they feel they have their
base sewn up and that a controversial policy makes sense in broader class
terms. So Nixon can go to China to open up detente. So Clinton can throw
women with dependent children off welfare. Maybe we're better off with
Republicans since they might be expected to have the flexibility to shift
leftwards. From the spineless Democrats, there can be no such expectations.)


Los Angeles Times
September 18, 2004 Saturday

The State;
More Killers Gaining Parole;
Under Schwarzenegger, 48 murderers have been released in less than a year.
In his five years as governor, Gray Davis freed just eight.

BYLINE: Peter Nicholas, Times Staff Writer
DATELINE: SACRAMENTO

For all his tough-guy swagger, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is quietly
pursuing one of the most permissive parole policies California has seen in
years, freeing convicted murderers in numbers that dwarf those of his two
predecessors.

In less than a year in office, Schwarzenegger has approved parole for 48
people serving life terms for murder. Former Gov. Gray Davis released eight
in his five years in office.

The 48, plus 10 inmates serving life terms for other offenses, have been
paroled with Schwarzenegger's consent. That's as many as were released in a
six-year span in the 1990s covering most of Republican Gov. Pete Wilson's
tenure.

The governor was not available for comment. But spokeswoman Terri Carbaugh
said Schwarzenegger "believes that people can reform and be reformed....
When he sits down with his attorneys to review parole matters, he's not
thinking about the political consequences. He's thinking about public
safety and the individual at hand."

The state Board of Prison Terms, led by a Schwarzenegger appointee, is
paroling inmates at seven times the rate under Wilson. In only two of the
last 13 years has the board approved parole for as many as 5% of the
inmates it considered for release. Through August of this year, the figure
was 7%.

"It certainly provides quite a bit of hope for the thousands of lifers who
thought they had no hope of under Gov. Davis," said Keith Wattley, staff
attorney for the Prison Law Office near San Quentin State Prison, which
provides legal services to inmates.

"However, you have to keep in mind that these are still really low numbers.
It's really the cream of the cream of the crop who ever get to the
governor's office. While there's some hope, it's still a bad situation for
them."

For a governor, particularly one with larger political aspirations,
releasing prison inmates carries potentially devastating consequences. Much
of the 1988 presidential race turned on Democratic candidate Michael
Dukakis' parole policies in Massachusetts, after an inmate named Willie
Horton attacked a couple while on furlough.

Davis paroled murderers on the rarest of occasions, routinely using the
governor's veto power to overturn his own board's parole awards. The state
Supreme Court upheld his right to do so in a 2002 ruling. The court said
the governor was free to deny parole even in cases in which an inmate had a
spotless record in prison

Davis once voiced the view that even murderers with second-degree
convictions should serve out life sentences, without exception.

"If you take someone else's life, forget it," Davis said in an interview
early in his first term.

"Compared to Gray Davis, Attila the Hun would look moderate," said Franklin
Zimring, a law professor who runs the criminal justice research program at
UC Berkeley.

Schwarzenegger may have less to fear, he added. With a public image forged
in movie roles of heroic cops -- battling drug dealers, criminals, and even
Satan -- "The Terminator" may have more space than his predecessors to free
prisoners without appearing soft on crime.

"He doesn't have real [political] base worries right now," Zimring said.

(clip)