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California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed 31 felony charges of wage theft and tax evasion against a construction company that he said cost the state and the company’s workers $2.6 million, he announced today.

Bonta filed the criminal complaint on Aug. 26 alleging that US Framing West dodged more than $2.5 million in state payroll taxes and underpaid workers on a public housing project in Cathedral City, in Riverside County. The company, which builds wood framing for such projects as hotels, apartments and housing developments, shorted workers at least $40,000 when it failed to pay the prevailing wage, Bonta said.

“For some reason US Framing West seems to think it can operate outside the prevailing wage laws of California,” Bonta said in a press conference in Los Angeles today. “I’m here with a simple message: They cannot. No company can.”

Cal Matters contacted officials with US Framing West named on its website but did not receive a response.

Bonta charged the company and two of its officials, Thomas Gregory English and Amelia Frazier Krebs, with wage and tax violations in Riverside, San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange, Alameda, Santa Clara, San Francisco and Contra Costa counties.

Political observers expect Bonta to announce a run for governor, so publicizing a high-profile labor case may help him build support from unions. Most wage theft cases brought by the state are handled administratively or in civil court. 

Between 2018 and 2022, US Framing West hired unlicensed subcontractors and underreported its payroll to the state Employment Development Department, Bonta said. He accused the company of grand theft, payroll tax evasion, prevailing wage theft, and filing false documents with the state.

US Framing West also skipped personal income tax withholding and premiums for state unemployment and disability insurance, Bonta said, and it filed false payroll records for workers on Veterans Village, the Cathedral City project. The facility opened in 2022, offering 60 housing units and services for veterans. 

The complaint says the company stole wages from 19 workers in Riverside County in 2021 and 2022. Under California’s penal code, employers can face grand theft charges for stealing more than $950 in wages or tips from one employee or a total of $2,350 from two or more employees within a year. 

The Northern California Carpenters Regional Council tipped off the state Department of Justice to potential wage theft violations at an Oakland construction project in 2019, Bonta said. The department subsequently looked into US Framing West’s other projects across the state. 

The office filed charges in August, and the two named defendants surrendered and were arraigned this month.

Subsidizing crime

California’s prevailing wage requirements apply to most projects built with public funding, said  Matthew Miller, senior field representative for labor compliance for Nor Cal Carpenters Union. He said US Framing West was working on at least four housing projects financed with tax credits.

“California taxpayers are subsidizing criminal activity in the affordable housing industry,” Miller said.

He added that developers should avoid doing business with companies that skirt employment and tax laws. 

Wage theft can take various forms — employers don’t pay employees for all hours worked, don’t pay the minimum wage, skip overtime pay or don’t allow legally required breaks. In California, workers lose about $2 billion a year to wage theft, Bonta’s office said, and workers in low-wage industries are the most affected. In 2020 and 2021, workers filed claims for more than $300 million in stolen wages each year.

Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Labor Federation, called wage theft “the number one crime” in the burglary and theft category and said businesses should not be able to pay their way out of wage theft violations. 

California’s two best known “progressive” prosecutors were doing what they promised the voters who elected them. 

Pamela Price, elected as Alameda County District Attorney in 2022, implemented a policy to guard against racial biases in sentencing enhancements and exposed the exclusion of Black and Jewish people from death penalty juries. A court-order to review those biases is currently underway. 

George Gascón, a former San Francisco police chief first elected as Los Angeles County District Attorney in 2020, established policies that prohibited his prosecutors from pursuing exorbitant sentencing enhancements, transferring juvenile cases into adult courts, and advocating against offender reentry at parole board hearings. 

But their movement suffered a serious setback in this month’s election when Price failed to defeat a recall, and Gascón lost his bid for reelection in a landslide to Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor who ran for attorney general as a Republican two years ago. Those defeats followed on the heels of San Francisco’s former progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin, who was recalled in 2022.

The ousting of the two district attorneys  punctuates a change in statewide views on law enforcement and public safety approaches. California voters this election overwhelmingly approved Proposition 36, a tough-on-crime measure that stiffened penalties for some drug and theft crimes. 

“You can’t just burn the system down,” said Anne Marie Schubert, former Sacramento County District Attorney, who battled former Gov. Jerry Brown over his criminal justice policies. “They get elected and then all of a sudden, they implement policies that are so far removed from being a real prosecutor who is seeking balance and accountability.”

It’s a sobering moment for criminal justice advocates who backed progressive prosecutors around the nation over the past decade.

“All successful movements experience setbacks, and the movement to course correct the criminal justice system is no different,” said Anne Irwin, founder and director of the criminal justice advocacy group Smart Justice California. “We will regroup and continue to fight for the values that animate our work.” 

Roots of the progressive prosecutor movement 

Nearly a decade ago, criminal justice advocates looked to who they saw as the most important decision makers in the state’s criminal justice ecosystem – prosecutors. 

In an attempt to counteract the over-incarceration of Black and brown people that resulted from decades of tough-on-crime prosecution, leaders of the movement encouraged prosecutors to use tools that weren’t entirely dependent on incarceration as a way to address harm in a community. 

According to Cynthia Chandler, policy director for Price, that has meant addressing the root causes of violence and giving prosecutors flexibility in how they respond to crime, such as sending more people to diversion programs as an alternative to incarceration. 

“Ultimately, what’s behind the vision of a progressive prosecutor is a prosecutor who is committed to the ethical mandate placed on prosecutors to search for truth and justice,” Chandler said. “And the search for truth is not furthered by seeking out a pound of flesh.”

The movement picked up in 2016 with funding from Democratic mega-donor George Soros. For the most part, progressive prosecutors have  been on the rise since then, with candidates finding success in places such as Chicago, Philadelphia and Brooklyn. 

This election, two progressive prosecutors won their races in Orlando, Florida and Austin, Texas. But UC Berkeley political science professor Eric Schickler says progressive defeats in California suggest the need for recalibration. 

“Social movements often come onto the scene with a very big, bold kind of vision,” Schickler said. “And to the extent that they’re successful and then get involved in actual governance, there tend to be forces that push back. It’s hard to change everything all at once. There’s built-in resistance both bureaucratically and also in public opinion.”

In California, these district attorneys faced an additional hurdle because the state allows voters to recall prosecutors before their term is up. Price lost her office just two years into a six-year term. 

“Some of these prosecutors have been put in really tricky positions, and particularly with the ones who faced a recall, (they) were barely able to implement anything in office before wealthy interests had mobilized to gather enough signatures to try to drive them out,” said Becca Goldstein, assistant professor of Law at UC Berkeley.

Dan Schnur, a political analyst and professor at the University of Southern California attributes the defeat of Price and Gascón to ideological and management factors. When voters expressed growing concern over what they viewed as a lenient response to public safety and criminal justice, Schnur said the DAs failed to recognize them.  

“The best politicians are those who are able to adjust to and address those changes in public opinion,” Schnur said. “Those who aren’t able to adjust become former elected officials.” 

What’s next in L.A., Alameda County?

In the wake of their defeats, criminal justice reform advocates are taking a closer look at their strategy.

Boudin, now executive director of UC Berkeley’s Criminal Law & Justice Center, said criminal justice reform advocates have to do a better job of messaging the vision for their policies. 

“You can’t expect elected prosecutors to do the work of solving homelessness and substance use. They don’t have the tools (or) the mandate…so how can we, as a movement, make sure that we’re not just electing progressive prosecutors, but we’re electing mayors and boards of supervisors and city councils who are willing to do the policy work of solving these problems?” he said. “Because if we keep dumping them on the criminal justice system, it’s not going to work.”

District attorneys, he said, cannot and should not be expected to solve all of the world’s problems.

“To think that it is the DA’s job to clean up Skid Row, it’s absurd,” said Garrett Miller, president of the Los Angeles Public Defenders’ union. “That is a societal failure…it’s not just the DA, nor is it really his responsibility — even though he may claim it is.”

It’s unclear who will succeed Price. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors will appoint an interim replacement to lead the office until 2026. In Los Angeles County, the choice is definitive, with Hochman expected to make sweeping changes as soon as he replaces Gascon on Dec. 2.

“We’re definitely afraid for our clients,” Miller said. “It’s a drastic change. Many more will do significantly more time. That’s the reality of it.”

Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys of Los Angeles, said “everyone’s really excited” to see Hochman take over.

“We’re immediately going to see the highly trained professionals of this office use their experience and knowledge to make decisions about the best outcomes for cases based upon the facts — rather than on blanket policies,” she said. “Which is the best thing for the defendants, for the victims, and for public safety.”

Alameda County Chief Public Defender Brendon Woods said district attorneys in the mold of Gascón and Price “moved prosecution in the right direction, but it really is the direction it should have been moving in all along.”

“I think there’s a space for prosecutors to do the right thing, independent of your label,” he continued.

What do voters want?

In Alameda County, Price was recalled with roughly 65% of votes. Nathan Hochman defeated Gascón with roughly 60% of votes. 

“To be truthful, I would like to believe it’s the end of (the progressive prosecutor movement),” Schubert said. “Any mainstream career prosecutor is going to tell you, yes – we support reforms. But at the end of it all, it cannot be extreme. It must be driven by the facts in the law. Every case is unique.” 

Those concerns were echoed by Napa County District Attorney Allison Haley, who backed Prop. 36.

“There seems to be this sort of sentiment that everyone, if they just took a class, would get better and engage in no more criminal activities. That kind of naivete is harmful,” Haley said. “That can be true for many of the people we see through the criminal justice system. But we’ve done too good of a job of sanitizing what we do, because I believe that there exists cruelty.”

Groups that supported Gascón and Price say their defeats don’t necessarily signal a far departure from voters’ investment in criminal justice reform. Proponents of Prop. 36, for example, talked about steering more people convicted of drug crimes to treatment. 

Hochman changed his political affiliation from a lifelong Republican to an independent before his run for district attorney. During his candidacy, he cited the need for more rehabilitation opportunities for incarcerated people and more community service programs for first-time, non-violent offenders.  

That tells some who supported progressive prosecutors that voters have not walked away from those values, but they’ve expressed frustration that things aren’t changing quickly enough, said Cristine Soto DeBerry, executive director of a nationwide organization that supports reform-oriented approaches to public safety. 

“I think there is a need and an eagerness from voters and residents in California to see a justice system that actually works – that’s not just a revolving door or a dungeon – and that we can find ways to problem solve, that we can find ways to rehabilitate people, that we can find better ways to help victims heal,” said Soto DeBerry.

Irwin said California prosecutors who are “repudiating” their tough-on-crime identity signals a shift. 

“That’s really the story of the progressive prosecution’s evolution in California – that now, it’s become mainstream for candidates in prosecutor races up and down the state to actually embrace reform,” Irwin said. “They know that the approach they have taken for the last 30 years is no longer palpable for Californians. I really hope that they genuinely do the work of reform-minded prosecution rather than just paying it lip service at election time.”

This story was updated to correct the spelling of Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods’ name.

CalMatters reporter Joe Garcia contributed to this report.

Cayla Mihalovich and Joe Garcia are California Local News fellows.

When police pulled over Tommy Bonds III on a chilly January day in 2022, the San Diego State University student had an idea why.

“What’s goin’ on, bro? How you doin’?” San Diego Police Officer Ryan Cameron said as he approached the car, shining his flashlight in Bonds’ face.

Bonds told Cameron he recognized him. The officer had previously stopped him for having an issue with his license plate cover, and Bonds let him know what he thought the interaction was about.

“We saw you turn around because you saw two guys — two Black guys in the car — obviously,” Bonds said.

“Well, part of it,” Cameron said, “with the hoodies up and stuff.”

“I mean, it’s cold outside,” Bonds said.

Bonds said he had an unloaded gun in the back of his car. As Bonds removed his firearm safety certificate from his wallet, Cameron said, “Easy. Easy.”

He told Bonds to exit his vehicle, then handcuffed him as he searched through his pockets.

“I’m just confused on why,” Bonds said as Cameron ordered him to walk toward the police car. “I mean, if it was two white boys driving down with hoodies in their car, you would’ve never turned around like that.”

After searching the car and finding a Glock in the rear passenger seat pocket, Cameron arrested Bonds for carrying a concealed weapon — one that he owned legally. While it is a misdemeanor in California to put a gun in a seat pocket if you don’t have a concealed carry permit, it’s a crime that’s typically charged against Black people in the state. Research from the University of Wisconsin has shown that in California, compared to white people, Black people are 16 times more likely to be arrested for stand-alone “gun possession” charges.

Cameron’s body camera captured the entire arrest scene. When the San Diego Public Defender’s Office took Bonds’ case, it seemed to attorneys as though Cameron had agreed that he had stopped him and his friend, in part, because they were Black. An admission like this fit the criteria to get the gun charge dismissed through a new law aimed at cases tainted with bias: the California Racial Justice Act.

The California Legislature passed the law in 2020 to allow people to show that discrimination contributed to their criminal charges or sentencing, and get their conviction or sentence modified. Essentially, the law allows defendants and their representation to put bias on the stand.

But when Bonds’ attorneys took their challenge to court, they ran into what has proven to be one of the biggest obstacles in achieving racial justice under California’s groundbreaking law: judges.

Four years in, the law has few success stories

The job of hearing challenges to the Racial Justice Act in San Diego fell to Judge Howard Shore. During Bonds’ first hearing, Shore questioned whether the Legislature had given judges sufficient guidance. 

Shore was skeptical of one of Bonds’ expert witnesses, a sociology professor at Cal State-San Marcos, who had written a book on racial profiling. So, Shore posed a hypothetical on whether people of color could be racist.

“I’ve had gang cases where Hispanics and Blacks are fighting each other, and the Hispanics refer to, if you excuse my language, niggers,” Shore said, “and the Blacks use discriminatory language against Hispanics.”

Shore said he was also skeptical of the conclusions of experts and statistics showing that Black people are subjected to traffic stops more frequently than other races. He said he believed Officer Cameron’s testimony that he didn’t see Bonds’ race before conducting the stop, and therefore there was no bias. Shore denied Bonds’ motion for relief under the Racial Justice Act.

In the four years the law has been in existence, defendants in only about a dozen cases have succeeded in proving that bias affected their criminal case, The Garrison Project and CalMatters found.

The state does not keep data on Racial Justice Act cases. There’s no courthouse code for a motion made under the act, leaving no systematic way to track cases. Successes tend to spread by word of mouth, while the details of rejections are buried in court filings.

In the absence of comprehensive data, the Garrison Project spoke with more than 40 attorneys, legal experts, and advocates, across more than a dozen counties to understand its effectiveness.

The results so far are mixed. While the law has offered a way to document instances of extreme bias and overt racism, its overall impact on California’s criminal legal system — the largest in the U.S. — has been weaker than its designers hoped when they crafted the legislation.

“I think that the numbers show a gap in reality,” said Geneviéve Jones-Wright, executive director of Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance, a San Diego nonprofit focused on social justice. “The numbers are dismal, and it’s not good, because it could have a chilling effect. A lot of people may feel that RJA motions are not worth it, so why go through with it.”

The Garrison Project reached out to six district attorney offices to understand their experience with the law. The district attorney offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Alameda counties did not respond. The offices in Orange and San Diego counties declined to discuss the new law. 

“I think this law has done a lot of positive things, but I don’t think it’s sufficient, because you have really systemic problems that do not lend themselves well to these individual conclusions,” said David Angel, Santa Clara assistant district attorney and head of the office’s RJA committee.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Racial Justice Act into law in September 2020 following the police murder of George Floyd. The bill’s sponsor, Ash Kalra, a Democratic assemblymember who represents most of San Jose, said at the time the ensuing racial justice protests and calls for “true justice in our court systems and across our entire justice system” made the moment right.

Black people are disproportionately represented in the state’s criminal legal system. In 2021, Black people were 9.5 times more likely to be incarcerated than white people, the fourth highest racial disparity among states. Even though they account for only 5% of California’s population, Black people make up about 28% of the prison population and 21% of people in jails.

A year after Shore rejected Bonds’ motion, the California Commission on Judicial Performance issued a severe public censure against the judge for being absent without authorization on at least 155 court days. The commission found that his conduct “constituted a dereliction of duty, a persistent failure to perform his judicial duties, and a failure to follow the directives.”

Frustrated with Shore’s arguments and decisions, Deputy Public Defender Abram Genser filed a motion to have him removed from one of his cases, and outlined some of the more egregious examples of his behavior.

In a February 2022 case, to discredit the use of statistics as evidence of bias, Shore compared the arrests of Black people to the Mafia heyday of Prohibition-era organized crime: “For example, back East, the 1920s, when mafioso were killing each other, there was a disproportion of number of Italians being prosecuted. Does that mean they were being discriminated against? No. It’s just that there were a lot of Italians committing crimes.”

In December 2023 he told a pair defense attorneys that “our Mexicans” in San Diego are like people in Gaza who cross the border to perform agricultural labor for Israelis.

Colleen Chien, a law professor at UC Berkeley, has been publishing legal data across California related to RJA and studying legal disparities. “What we’re seeing is that there’s what we already know, there’s a lot of racial disparity in our system, and it’s really pervasive — almost every single county, on every single charge,” she said. “It’s hard to believe that that could just be the product of things that don’t have to do with racism.”

There have been at least 21 Racial Justice Act filings in San Diego County since the law went into effect. Some cases are still pending, but no judge has ruled in favor of a motion under the law, according to the San Diego District Attorney’s Office.

Bonds appealed his case and had to hope that the higher courts would have a different reading of the Racial Justice Act than Shore.

How a Racial Justice Act case works

There are a number of steps to a challenge under the Racial Justice Act. First, a defense attorney has to file a motion and make the case to a judge that there is bias or animus in a case. If the judge agrees that there is more reason than not to believe the case has been infected with bias, the case moves to evidentiary hearings, where the judge will determine if the facts actually do amount to bias.

If a case meets that threshold, then it moves to remedy, where the judge decides how the bias can be cured—either through a new trial, resentencing on a conviction, or pretty much any legal outcome under their discretion.

A review of court documents, appellate rulings, and interviews with defense attorneys indicate the true power of a Racial Justice Act proceeding: the ability to add evidence of bias to the court record through motions.

One motion filed in February revealed that during a juvenile detention hearing in Sacramento County in July 2023, Judge Renard Shepard, who is also Black, referred to a Black minor as a “gangbanger” and said, “He’s got it in his blood, in his culture. He can’t get it out of his system.” 

In October 2021, Orange County’s district attorney, Todd Spitzer, held a strategy meeting with his prosecutors to explore using the race of a Black man’s former girlfriends in a case of double murder, allegedly stemming from a white woman breaking up with him. Ebrahim Baytieh, then the senior assistant district attorney, wrote in a memo to the defense that he recoiled at the tactic of using a victim’s whiteness. “DA Spitzer stated that he disagreed and he knows many black people who get themselves out of their bad circumstances and bad situations by only dating ‘white women,’” Baytieh wrote.

It was the first time in the Racial Justice Act’s history that a judge determined a district attorney was biased.

Another recent motion filed in Orange County involved the case of a Hispanic man experiencing a mental health crisis. Police enforced a restraining order and seemingly attacked and arrested him because he couldn’t speak English. “He starts speaking Spanish,” the officer told his supervisor. “You know what? I don’t have time for this [so] I just grabbed him.”

In the body-camera video, less than 15 seconds passed between the confused man being confronted by the police entering the home, and him being pulled to the ground by his neck.

“You don’t know the importance of just going into the court and fighting it and having these conversations,” said Elizabeth Lashley-Haynes, a deputy public defender for Los Angeles County. “It’s incredibly meaningful to be able to articulate and say to a judge, ‘No, this officer doing that is biased.’”

Emi MacLean, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, published a review of Racial Justice Act cases earlier this year. The relatively few remedies, she said, show how difficult it is for defense attorneys to get the system to recognize officers’ prejudices.

“It is an uphill battle in many cases to be able to convince judges, not to mention prosecutors, who have been operating under a system that has severely limited the ability of individuals to bring challenges to racial biases,” she said. “We would certainly expect that there should be more based on extensively documented disparities in the criminal legal system.”

Life before the Racial Justice Act

Prior to the Racial Justice Act, Californians could only explicitly hold the system accountable for bias through a civil rights lawsuit filed through the civil courts. For some defendants, the new process offers the first-ever opportunity to confront racism and bias they’ve experienced in the criminal legal system—something Terry Bemore hadn’t previously been able to do as he sat on death row for two and a half decades while his case made its way up the appellate courts. 

In 1985, Bemore was arrested for a murder committed during a robbery in San Diego, one of a series of robberies at the time where a “tall Black male” was described as the perpetrator. Four years later, he was sentenced to death.

Court documents in Bemore’s death row appeal two and a half decades later revealed the ineffectiveness of his defense. His lead attorney, Logan McKechnie, allegedly billed the state for hundreds of thousands of dollars for improper trips and reimbursements, while also making comments about not wanting to go into Black neighborhoods with his investigator to pursue leads. In 2000, Elizabeth Barranco, the co-counsel in the case, wrote in a declaration that McKechnie struck jurors who he suspected were gay because he said he “just couldn’t trust queers,” and did little preparation.

McKechnie has gone on to have an esteemed legal career, arguing hundreds of jury trials, including 60 murder cases, winning over 100 awards for service and writing.

In its 2015 decision in Bemore’s case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found Bemore had “constitutionally deficient representation.” But the panel of three white judges, all born nearly two decades before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, didn’t think the outcome of Bemore’s verdict would have changed with better representation. They upheld Bemore’s conviction, but reversed the death sentence.

In March, Bemore’s lawyers filed a Racial Justice Act motion, arguing McKechnie’s bias led to ineffective counsel. Attorneys working on Bemore’s case from the University of San Francisco School of Law’s Racial Justice Clinic contacted McKechnie to get his side of the case.

“I told Mr. Bemore, ‘Don’t get up there and act like a fucking nigger,’” McKechnie wrote in a declaration for the Racial Justice Act motion. McKechnie recalled that Bemore “was hyper and using street slang” just before he took the stand, writing, “I had never seen Mr. Bemore act ghetto like that before and I was afraid of how the jury would perceive him.”

When McKechnie initially discussed the case with the USF attorneys who were working on the motion, he initially stated Bemore was “shucking and jiving” but then wanted the detail changed: “Don’t say shucking and jiving because that’s too racist.”

In a statement emailed to CalMatters, McKechnie wrote that he wanted the jury to see the man he knew, not what he was becoming behind bars. “It was probably inappropriate to tell him to not act like a nigger on the stand. However, at the time, it was a message I wanted to get to him.”

In some cases, defense attorneys have won for their clients—but regretted not being able to hold the agencies accountable after prosecutors conceded.

In Los Angeles County, Torrance police officers exchanged racist and anti-gay texts in 2021, and some were charged with spray-painting a swastika on a car. Lashley-Haynes filed a Racial Justice Act motion for discovery of more text exchanges, but prosecutors agreed to her resentencing request instead, ending the need for additional disclosure.

“I was actually kind of upset,” she said, but, “I have to be very careful that my desire for the betterment of RJA doesn’t get in the way of what’s best for the client.”

Joseph Hayes was sentenced 41 years to life in prison for driving the getaway car in a 1995 street robbery that resulted in another person’s death. Hispanic and a member of the Choctaw Nation, he grew up in a San Jose neighborhood nicknamed “The Crime Zone.” He spent 25 years in maximum security prison until he connected with defense attorney Brian McComas. The law had been revised since Hayes had been inside to remove the murder culpability for someone indirectly associated with a killing, and he seemed eligible for having his life sentence removed.

But the Santa Clara County district attorney had other plans. The prosecutor on Hayes’ case agreed to remove the life sentence—but suggested replacing it with a sentence totaling 69 years in prison, substantially higher than white defendants charged with the same crime. In January 2022, McComas filed a Racial Justice Act motion using data to show that the new sentence was much higher than what a similarly situated white man would receive.

McComas said the judge had called the attorneys into his chambers to tell them that he was going to resentence Hayes so he would be released, but he wouldn’t be ruling on the Racial Justice Act motion.

“Rather than address the motion and do the right thing and make the RJA law so that it is precedential, he said, ‘I want this case to go away,’” McComas said.

“I’ve had two other cases where very similar things have happened,” he said, “and that’s fine for individuals, but in terms of the purposes of the law, which are to root out systemic racism, that’s not really achieving that goal.”

Hayes has been out of prison for two and a half years and has reestablished his life with his wife and children. He’s now the regional manager of a local custodial company with an ownership stake, but it still bothers him that he passed on a Racial Justice Act motion.

“I still feel guilty for having done that, because my people have been run over constantly by the government and the powers that be,” he said. “I had an opportunity to do my small part, but at the same time, that might’ve really meant me having to go back to prison for another five years, 10 years.”

A decision on Judge Shore

One of the most celebrated victories from the Racial Justice Act comes from Contra Costa County, where motions showed evidence of statistical bias in capital cases and also coincided with an FBI probe into racism and criminal conduct at the Antioch and Pittsburg police departments.

According to a Racial Justice Act motion filed in April 2023 for four defendants, the officers surveilling them exchanged multiple racist texts on March 25, 2021.

“I hate these idiots,” Antioch Police Officer Eric Rombough texted.

“The cops or the niggers?” Detective Jonathan Adams responded.

“All of them,” Rombough replied.

In November 2021, Rombough texted an officer, “Fuck your people. I hate this city.” He added, “I’m only stopping them cuz they black. Fuck them. Kill each other.”

The defendants, Terryon Pugh, Eric Windom, Keyshawn McGee, and Trent Allen, were originally indicted on charges including murder and attempted murder. A judge ruled that police racism tainted the investigation under the Racial Justice Act and that gang enhancements needed to be dropped. In May, all four defendants struck a deal with prosecutors that reduced their charges to manslaughter and removed gang enhancements on their cases. Instead of facing decades in prison, they received sentences between 13 and  20 years.

In February, the 4th District Court of Appeals overturned Judge Shore’s ruling in Bonds’ case.

“Whatever may be uncertain about the Racial Justice Act, there are a few things that are abundantly clear,” the justices wrote in their decision. “Perhaps most obvious is that the Racial Justice Act was enacted to address much more than purposeful discrimination based on race. Indeed, the primary motivation for the legislation was the failure of the judicial system to afford meaningful relief to victims of unintentional but implicit bias.”

The higher court found that Shore misunderstood the statute and did not “address the abundant evidence” that at least unintended racial bias influenced Bonds’ traffic stop; the court overturned Shore’s ruling, sending the motion back to the San Diego trial court for a correct application of the law in February.

A little over a month later, Orange County Judge Cheri Pham disqualified Shore from Racial Justice Act cases. “From his comments, a person aware of the facts could reasonably believe

that Judge Shore believes certain racial or ethnic groups commit more crimes than others,” Pham wrote in her ruling.

“I deny that any of my statements or rulings were based on bias, prejudice, or animosity,” Shore wrote in a court statement addressing the motion to have him disqualified. “The statements I made during these various court hearings were merely my efforts to gain a greater understanding of the facts and the law and were in the furtherance of the discharge of my judicial duty to accurately apply the law to the facts as presented.”

Shore’s department that handled pretrial screening was shut down.

But the San Diego Public Defender’s Office doesn’t have the resources to appeal all of his denials. And aside from ruling on Racial Justice Act motions, Shore has presided over hundreds of criminal jury trials.

This story was produced in partnership with the Garrison Project, an independent, nonpartisan organization addressing the crisis of mass incarceration and policing.

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CRESCENT CITY, Calif. — In less than 15 minutes, Michael Mariscal validated why a team of officials at Cal Poly Humboldt have spent more than three years trying to set up the first bachelor’s degree program at a maximum-security prison in California. 

At the end of a class in persuasive speaking, Mariscal was tasked with giving a presentation to highlight his personal growth. His 22 classmates inside B Facility at Pelican Bay State Prison were skeptical: Just two weeks earlier, Mariscal had used his presentation time to give step-by-step directions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

But today was different. 

“I’ve never told this to anyone before,” the 32-year-old Mariscal said, holding back tears as he explained his feelings when he learned at his trial that the state was requesting he be put to death. “I said, ‘That’s OK, that’s cool,’” showing no outward emotion at the time, he told the class. But inside his mind was reeling. 

“I’m not innocent; I did everything I was convicted for,” he quickly added, referring to a gang shooting that left two people dead. 

Mariscal went on to say that his brother had received a life sentence and been murdered while in prison. Mariscal himself was given five life sentences. He declared that he did not expect ever to be released, but finished by saying, “I can still live a meaningful life in here. Freedom is different for everybody.” 

A shocked silence filled the room before classmate Darryl Baca spoke up. “That’s some raw stuff right here. I recognize the potential in you.” 

“It’s not the first time I’ve cried after class,” the professor, Romi Hitchcock-Tinseth, said later, although she was teaching only her fourth session at the prison. 

Mariscal’s speech exemplified everything officials at Cal Poly Humboldt hoped to accomplish when they set out to create a satellite campus at one of the most notorious prisons in the country. They knew that earning a degree could help some men shorten their sentences and possibly land well-paying jobs once released. But they also hoped that the classes, and the camaraderie fostered there, would pay immediate dividends, lessening violence at the prison and improving students’ daily behaviors. Seeing Mariscal address his past while both sharing his feelings and mapping out a hopeful path forward just four weeks into the semester was validating, officials said.

California has been a leader in prison education programs, starting with a 2014 rule authorizing state funding for community colleges to set up programs for students who are incarcerated. Since then, some 25 community colleges and eight universities have established degree-granting programs that now cover every facility in the state. Humboldt’s Pelican Bay program is not only the state’s first bachelor’s initiative at a max-security prison; earlier this year, it became the first program in the country approved under new federal Department of Education rules to let incarcerated individuals access Pell Grant funds to pay for college. 

For about 29 years Pell money had been largely prohibited for individuals who are incarcerated, with the exception of a small federal pilot program that debuted in 2015. The new Pell rules made 767,000 people at state prisons nationwide eligible to pay for college with federal funds — starting with a handful of those at Pelican Bay. 

“We’re setting an example,” said Tony Wallin-Sato, a former Humboldt official who helped create the program. “If we can be successful at Pelican Bay, it can work anywhere.” 

Pelican Bay is one of the most infamous prisons in the country. Built in 1989 in the extreme northwest corner of California, the facility was created to isolate its occupants in two ways. Many of the men who are incarcerated there hail from the Los Angeles area, nearly 700 miles south. And nearly half of the facility’s units were built for solitary confinement, with some occupants stuck inside these 7-by-11-foot cells for decades. 

A “60 Minutes” report in 1993 highlighted excessive force by guards, and a 1995 lawsuit exposed inadequate medical care. In 2013, people incarcerated there staged a two-month hunger strike that spread throughout the state’s prisons to protest the excessive use of solitary confinement. 

But program staffers and people incarcerated at the facility say day-to-day life there now bears little resemblance to those days. About 400 of the prison’s 2,200 incarcerated men currently take classes that include GED preparation, courses from four community colleges and, now, Humboldt’s new bachelor’s program. 

Pelican Bay “used to be one of the most violent prisons in the country. Now it’s not,” said Mark Taylor, a Humboldt official who spent more than 21 years incarcerated before helping to create this program.

In fact, incarcerated students openly drop hints around Kari Telaro Rexford, the prison’s supervisor of academic instruction, telling her they hope she’ll soon bring in a master’s degree program. “I’m trying,” she tells them. 

Humboldt prison program ‘makes people safer’

Rebecca Silbert, the deputy superintendent of higher education for the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, has watched every program that has started in the eight years since bachelor’s degree programs began in state prisons. “Because of the involvement of senior leadership,” she said, “Cal Poly Humboldt’s was the easiest by far.” 

Yet Silbert admitted she first tried to talk officials out of creating this program. “Are you sure?” she said she asked them. “It’s easy to be starry-eyed in the beginning, but it’s an endeavor.”

Humboldt’s provost, Jenn Capps, said she agreed with that assessment but pushed on because the program “makes people safer.” Offering bachelor’s degree classes helps “disrupt the narrative” of violence in these men’s lives, making life safer for them, their families, guards at Pelican Bay, and ultimately the public, she argued. 

“There are lots of myths out there about people who are incarcerated,” Capps said. “But everybody wants community safety. Offering prison education programs is key to community safety.” 

A team of Cal Poly Humboldt officials worked for more than two years before beginning the program in January. The university’s communications department chair, Maxwell Schnurer, taught a class at the prison through the College of the Redwoods to understand why that community college’s program had been so successful. Redwoods began with one course at the prison in 2015, and its program has since mushroomed to 43 courses serving 390 students, said Tory Eagles, the college’s Pelican Bay Scholars program manager. 

As of this semester, the university has ramped up to four classes, each of which are taken by all of the school’s 23 students. Each student had already earned associate degrees and all are now communications majors. Humboldt’s five-year plan is to add other majors and expand to two more of the prison’s four yards, said Steve Ladwig, the director of the university’s Transformative and Restorative Education Center.

Being the first program the federal government authorized to use Pell Grants for incarcerated men put a spotlight on Humboldt’s work. But actually getting those funds has proven to be hard, largely because of the federal Department of Education’s botched rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, last year. 

Although all of Humboldt’s students are eligible for Pell, only about half of the 23 have had their applications reviewed by the Department of Education so far, said Ladwig. While the university waits for approval of its students’ Pell Grants, it is covering tuition for each student, he added. 

When Humboldt staged a ceremony to hand incarcerated individuals their college acceptance letters, Ladwig had to venture to the prison’s solitary confinement wing to deliver Mariscal’s letter, because he was being punished for getting into a fight. 

Decades in solitary confinement

Darryl Baca — the student who praised Mariscal after his classroom speech — epitomizes the entire history of Pelican Bay. He came to the prison in 1990, only months after it opened. He spent his first 25 years in solitary confinement, where many incarcerated individuals with gang backgrounds were placed. He was part of the 2013 hunger strike that led to changes in how the prison uses solitary. Now he’s not only a straight-A student, but someone both staff and fellow students look to for guidance. 

As Mariscal unspooled his revelation, Baca noticed the seven-minute timer the instructor had set was about to go off and interrupt his speech. From his seat at the front of the class, Baca reached over and deftly paused the timer while handing Mariscal a tissue. 

Baca said it took him three tries to earn his GED. Later, he used correspondence courses to secure an associate degree. He continued his education with College of the Redwood’s courses and said he recently passed up a chance to transfer to a lower-security prison because of his Humboldt classes.

“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” he said. The college classes have erased the barriers that typically exist among prisoners of different backgrounds, he explained. While classmates support each other, many people at the prison “are making better choices now. The culture has evolved. We’re like a campus now.” 

Baca isn’t the only person incarcerated at Pelican Bay who has rejected possible transfers to other prisons. Others said they made the difficult decision to pass up the chance to be moved closer to home and earn a lower-security designation because they wanted to continue in Humboldt’s classes. “I told my family, ‘I want to see you and get closer, but I can’t transfer,’” said Davion Holman, 35, who is originally from the Los Angeles area. Holman, sentenced to 31 years in 2013, told his classmates that before being arrested, he liked school. “I knew I was smart, but I was content being stupid,” he said. 

“We take it serious because it is serious,” he added. 

Humboldt Professor Roberto Mónico, who teaches a course called multiethnic resistance in the U.S., says at times it feels more like a graduate-level seminar than an undergraduate class. Students are well prepared, he said, with “all the readings marked up,” and they drop in references to the theories of Plato and Aristotle. Yet they can be sensitive about not knowing how to create a PowerPoint presentation or other computer skills because of their lack of formal education. 

“If I tell them to read two out of five essays, they read all five,” said Hitchcock-Tinseth. Added Ladwig: “They are phenomenally well prepared to take on a bachelor’s degree.” 

Being in a college classroom and able to debate ideas freely is “not mirrored in a lot of other prison experiences,” said Ruth Delaney, who directs the Vera Institute of Justice’s Unlocking Potential initiative, which helps colleges develop prison programs.  

Francisco Vallejo admitted he struggled when he first began taking community college classes, dropping some before trying again the next semester. But now he hopes his academic progress will bolster his case for parole in 2026. “I had to train to be a student,” he said. “Redwoods gives you the tools, but you use them at Humboldt.”

Student Dom Congiardo said the prison environment teaches people to guard their feelings. But taking college classes shows them “you don’t have to be afraid to open up,” he said. “You won’t be judged for it. It’s all new territory for us.” 

Carlson Bryant is another student who declined a transfer to stay in Humboldt’s program. At 41 years old, he’s been at Pelican Bay since 2003, more than half his life. 

Bryant said he was scared of the prison’s reputation when he came to Pelican Bay at age 19. “In the beginning, I would have left so fast,” he said. “But there’s too much positive stuff here. It changes you all the way around.” 

Contact editor Lawrie Mifflin at 212-678-4078 or mifflin@hechingerreport.org. 

This story was produced with support from the Education Writers Association Reporting Fellowship program. 

This story about prison education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger higher education newsletter.

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In a setback to California’s historic reparations effort, voters rejected a ballot measure that would have ended forced labor in prisons and jails. Proposition 6 garnered support from Democratic party leaders, labor unions and dozens of advocacy groups who viewed their efforts as part of a national movement to end a racist legacy and abolish slavery. 

The measure would have amended the state’s constitution to repeal language that allows involuntary servitude as a form of criminal punishment, making work assignments voluntary and allowing incarcerated people to prioritize their rehabilitation.

“While it’s disappointing that our measure to remove slavery from California’s constitution was not approved by the voters, this setback does not end the fight,” wrote Democratic Assemblymember Lori Wilson from Suisun City in a statement on Friday morning. “Together, we will continue pushing forward to ensure that our state’s constitution reflects the values of equality and freedom that all Californians deserve.” 

California mandates tens of thousands of incarcerated people to work at jobs – many of which they do not choose — ranging from packaging nuts to doing dishes, to making license plates, sanitizer and furniture for less than 74 cents an hour, according to legislative summaries of prison work. 

If a person does not complete their work, regardless of illness, injury or bereavement, they face punishment, such as disciplinary infractions, which can lead to losing privileges including visits from family members. Prop. 6 would have prohibited the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from disciplining incarcerated people who refuse a work assignment.

California has a history of enslavement and racially discriminatory policies despite the fact that it entered the union as a free state, as detailed by the California’s Reparations Task Force. The measure was sponsored by Wilson and recommended by the Reparations Task Force as a step toward upholding human rights and addressing systemic injustices that have harmed Black Californians.

“At what point, California, will you see us?” said Dr. Cheryl Grills, a psychology professor at Loyola Marymount University and member of the Reparations Task Force. “How much did (voters) understand the context of over 200 years of forced labor put on Black people? And where’s the humanity and compassion for the pain and suffering of the people whose ancestors endured that, and whose current generations are living with the legacy of that?” 

Did ballot language imperil Prop. 6?

A similar attempt to ban forced prison labor failed in 2022. At the time, the California Department of Finance opposed the proposal, noting that it had the potential to drive up prison spending by $1.5 billion annually to provide minimum wage to incarcerated workers. This time, lawmakers adjusted what became Prop. 6 to clarify that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation would have set wages for voluntary work assignments in state prisons. 

Lawmakers and advocates pursued a constitutional amendment as a way to “guarantee that (California) does not repeat enslavement, just wrapped up in a different outfit,” Grills said. 

It faced no funded opposition, and as election results showed the measure trailing, Prop. 6 supporters and independent political experts said the language might have confused voters.

The California Attorney General’s Office writes ballot language and summaries, and the word “slavery” did not appear on the California ballot. Instead, the language read, “Eliminates Constitutional Provision Allowing Involuntary Servitude for Incarcerated Persons. Legislative Constitutional Amendment.”

“When I saw the words ‘involuntary servitude,’ I thought, ‘This might take some explaining for the voters,’” said Mark Baldassare, survey director at the Public Policy Institute of California.  “We know that when people are unsure or uncertain, the default is to vote ‘no.’”

In Nevada this election, a measure similar to Prop. 6 passed with 60% voter approval. Voters there saw ballot language that referenced slavery. 

The Nevada measure read, “Shall the Ordinance of the Nevada Constitution and the Nevada Constitution be amended to remove language authorizing the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as a criminal punishment?”

“If Prop. 6 had slavery in the ballot title summary, it would have passed – just like in Nevada,” said J Vasquez, a formerly incarcerated organizer for the advocacy group Communities United for Restorative Youth. “People couldn’t make the connection between current working prison conditions and slavery.”

Assemblymember Wilson also pointed to the Prop. 6 ballot language in her a statement on the measure’s failure. 

“The Prop. 6 campaign believes that using clearer language, like other states have done, could have provided voters with the historical context and moral imperative behind Proposition 6. This experience has underscored the importance of framing and education, and we’re taking these insights into account as we plan the path forward,” she wrote in her statement.

A Prop. 6 victory would have put California behind a growing number of states, including Oregon, Utah and Alabama, that recently removed language sanctioning involuntary servitude from their constitutions. Now, involuntary servitude remains embedded in 15 state constitutions.  

“California got it wrong,” Vasquez said. “And now, we’re going to keep seeing the same old revolving door of people getting out and going right back in. Shame on us for not doing what we could to build safer communities.”

‘A highway for exploitation’

Proponents of Prop. 6 say California’s constitutional provision has created “a highway for exploitation” that hampers an incarcerated person’s ability to participate in rehabilitation.  

“A lot of the programs that are vital to rehabilitation are held at the same time as the majority of the forced work assignments,” said Lawrence Cox, regional advocacy and organizing associate at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. 

That tension effectively makes rehabilitation a secondary priority and hinders an incarcerated person’s ability to prepare for release, the measure’s supporters said. 

Roughly 40% of people released from state prisons were convicted of new crimes within three years, according to the state’s most recent report on recidivism. 

“Accountability is not going in there and pushing a broom all day,” Vasquez said. “It’s about someone working on themselves so when they come back to the community, we all benefit.”

Findings from a report earlier this year by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation “point to lower recidivism rates for those who earned credits from participation and completion of rehabilitative programming.”

“Nothing about prison slavery is good for rehabilitation and rehabilitation is what’s good for public safety,” said Carmen Cox, director of government affairs at ACLU California Action. “I genuinely believe that Californians don’t want to fund slavery. We will immediately begin the education campaign. People do not understand what it looks like to be an incarcerated worker and how that impacts folks outside.”

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

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During the four years that Donald Trump was president the first time, California sued him about every 12 days on average.

Now that he’s returning to office, Democratic state leaders are preparing potential new lawsuits.

Gov. Gavin Newsom today called a special legislative session to accelerate the Democratic administration’s preparations. Beginning Dec. 2, he’s planning to ask lawmakers to set aside additional money for the lawsuits he anticipates.

“California will seek to work with the incoming president — but let there be no mistake, we intend to stand with states across our nation to defend our Constitution and uphold the rule of law,” Newsom said in a written statement Wednesday. “Federalism is the cornerstone of our democracy. It’s the United STATES of America.”

State Attorney General Rob Bonta has been developing plans to defend California policies since the summer, when polls showed a good chance that Trump would win the election. Bonta has said his team has preemptively written briefs on a variety of issues in preparation of what’s to come.

“We bring cases when we believe will win, when we’ve done the due diligence, the preparation, the research, the planning, the fact factual development and the legal analysis to win. And we will do that again here,” Bonta said today at a press conference in San Francisco.

California sued the Trump administration 123 times and scored major victories. Among them: California defended the state’s clean air rules, preserved the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) that benefits undocumented people who came to the United States as children, and protected the Affordable Care Act. 

Those issues — the environment, immigration and health care — could once again be the main battle lines in the lawsuits that are expected to be waged between California’s Democratic administration and Trump’s White House.

This time, some experts anticipate that Trump will bring forward a more methodical approach to policy.

They point to Project 2025, a 900-page document by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation that lays out a conservative agenda. While Trump tried to distance himself from the blueprint during his campaign, former members of his administration contributed to the report. There is also some overlap between what he’s proposed and what’s outlined in the document, such as mass deportations and overhauling the Justice Department. 

Choosing battles in a second Trump term

In his victory speech, Trump signaled policy objectives that would likely conflict with California’s goals, such as expanding oil production and turning the nation’s public health agencies over to vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — although in what capacity is still unclear.

“He’s going to help make America healthy again,” Trump said about Kennedy during his speech. “I just said: ‘But, Bobby, leave the oil to me. 

“‘Bobby, stay away from the liquid gold. Other than that, go have a good time.’”

While Democratic leaders vow to uphold their values, they may be more careful in choosing their battles this time around, said Matt Lesenyie, a political science professor at Cal State Long Beach.

“Some of the legal challenges are substantive, like we want to regulate greenhouse gases. Other ones may be more symbolic, and that’s not to trivialize cultural or gender identity, but one thing that has been clear, at least to me in this Trump win, is that those cultural issues are motivating his voters,” he said.

Because it is a large state, California also has power to negotiate with the federal government. 

“Faced with near-total Republican control of the federal government, Sacramento may think the state does better by negotiating,” said David A. Carrillo, executive director of Berkeley Law’s California Constitution Center. “That affects whether California’s strategy is to fight on all fronts, or to focus on leveraging its size and market power in making its own domestic and international agreements — call it soft secession.”

Likely disputes over abortion, health care

By most accounts, health care policies are expected to be contested again. 

In his first term, Trump’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed, but he did slash some provisions of the landmark health law. 

He also influenced the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that protected abortion rights, by appointing three conservative Supreme Court justices.

In 2019 the Trump administration also blocked clinics and providers that offer or refer patients to abortion services from receiving federal family planning dollars. California sued. The Biden administration later reversed Trump’s rule. Any similar restrictions on abortion would certainly prompt California to respond with litigation again. 

Carrillo anticipates that the Trump administration might move to restrict mifepristone, one of the medications used to induce abortion, by using a 19th Century law known as the Comstock Act.

“One fight California probably can’t avoid is abortion, specifically access to mifepristone,” Carrillo said. “For example, the federal Comstock Act in general bans sending something for ‘abortion-causing purposes’ in the mail. 

“Expect a major legal battle if federal prosecutors start enforcing that to prevent interstate shipping of medical abortion drugs or contraceptives,” he said.

Others say they also expect a fight from states if Trump attempts to make drastic cuts to the Medicaid program. About 14.7 million low-income Californians rely on Medicaid for health coverage. The program is also known as Medi-Cal in California.

Project 2025, for example, proposes to cap what the federal government pays for the Medicaid program, which is funded by both the feds and the states. This means that states would receive a fixed amount regardless of their costs. In the health policy world this is referred to as “block grants” or “per capita caps.”

“So that’s a big cut, a big cost shift to states, and states would have no choice but to either raise taxes substantially or far more likely, shrink their Medicaid programs to a great degree, which means more uninsured, more people go without needed care,” said Edwin Park, a research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy.  

Park says one key difference between a second Trump administration and the first is that Trump and his team could have a clearer vision of what they want to do with health care programs this time around. That includes the potential for things like imposing work requirements to qualify for Medi-Cal or slashing aid in Obamacare marketplaces, making it less affordable to sign up.

CalMatters reporter Cayla Mihalovich contributed to this story.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

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From their phones and their television screens and sometimes out their windows, Californians saw their state change quickly in the pandemic. Homelessness grew then and continued to grow. Fatal fentanyl overdoses soared. Brash daytime smash-and-grab robberies floated from TikTok to nightly newscasts. 

A constellation of law enforcement, prosecutors and big-box retailers insisted the cause was simple: Punishment wasn’t harsh enough. 

They put forward a measure that elevated some low-level crimes to felonies and created avenues to coerce reluctant people into substance abuse treatment. That measure, Proposition 36, passed overwhelmingly Tuesday night. It led 70% to 30% early Wednesday.

It undoes some of the changes voters made with a 2014 ballot measure that turned certain nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors, effectively shortening prison sentences. Amid the pandemic’s visible changes to California, in its growing homeless encampments, its ransacked Nordstroms and its looted rail yards, critics of that previous initiative finally found the right climate to turn back the law. 

The strategy at the center of Prop. 36 is still a matter of debate. Its opponents say harsher sentences will never be an effective deterrent to crime. Much of the science, some of it funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, backs them up.

But the victory of Prop. 36, despite opposition from the governor and most of the state’s Democratic leadership, was not about what people know, it’s about what they saw. 

An IT technician was afraid to walk five blocks to work in downtown Los Angeles, so he bought a parking pass and drove. A big-box retailer moved all of its goods to its second floor because people kept stealing from the ground floor. The fentanyl crisis had police on body camera videos panicking and fainting when exposed to the substance. 

The Prop. 36 campaign ran on images like those, and it promised to make them go away. 

That Prop. 36 would pass has been fairly clear since late summer, when Gov. Gavin Newsom’s last-ditch attempts to preempt the measure with other retail crime bills failed to siphon funding from Prop. 36 or to keep it off the ballot. So how did Californians, who supported more lenient sentences under 2014’s Proposition 47, come to support a tougher crime measure a decade later?

“What we might be seeing is evidence of a course correction of a long path of criminal justice reform efforts,” said Magnus Lofstrom, criminal justice policy director at the Public Policy Institute of California. Prop. 36 “targets crime and social problems that people can see: retail theft, more merchandise locked up, more viral videos (of thefts) and then the media talking about all of it.” 

It’s those visible problems, Lofstrom said, that can quickly change voters’ minds. That also includes growing sidewalk encampments of the unhoused, paired with public drug consumption. 

During the pandemic, the rate of shoplifting and commercial burglaries skyrocketed, especially in Los Angeles, Alameda, San Mateo and Sacramento counties. Statewide, the institute found that reported shoplifting of merchandise worth up to $950 soared 28% over the past five years. That’s the highest observed level since 2000. 

Combining shoplifting with commercial burglaries, the institute’s researchers found that total reported thefts were 18% higher than in 2019. 

“California voters have spoken with a clear voice on the triple epidemics of retail theft, homelessness and fatal drug overdoses plaguing our state,” said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. “In supporting Proposition 36, they said yes to treatment.  They said yes to accountability.  And they said yes to putting common sense before partisanship, so we can stop the suffering in our communities.”

Prop. 36 was not the only sign that California voters wanted to see tougher enforcement from law enforcement leaders. A move to recall progressive Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price jumped to a big lead in early returns. Los Angeles County’s progressive prosecutor, District Attorney George Gascón, lost his reelection bid to Nathan Hochman, who in 2022 ran unsuccessfully for state attorney general as a Republican.

Californians still want rehabilitation for prisoners

Opponents to Prop. 36 said the measure was a clever way to reintroduce the war on drugs in a way that was palatable to voters in 2024. They argued that no studies on criminal justice or homelessness support the idea that harsher punishment — or the threat of harsher punishment — prevents crime or gets people off the street. 

Prop. 36 will expend hundreds of millions of dollars in court and prison costs, they say, without measurably reducing crime or poverty.

“We are aware that there’s been a shift in terms of the vibe around criminal legal reform,” said Loyola Law School professor Priscilla Ocen, a former special assistant attorney general at the California Department of Justice. 

“I don’t agree with the premise that California is swinging more rightward when it comes to the bad old days of mass incarceration,” she said. “I think on certain issues, yes, the electorate is frustrated with feelings of insecurity — despite the fact that those feelings are often not grounded in data in terms of your likelihood of being victimized, either by a property crime or a crime against a person.”

The Yes on 36 campaign focused on “a sense of insecurity and uncertainty” highlighting the most visible elements of pandemic-era crime, Ocen said. Despite overall violent and property crime rates far closer to their historic lows than their peaks, certain visible crimes such as burglaries and car break-ins have risen year-over-year since the pandemic until at least 2023, the last year for which statistics are available. 

“There’s a frustration that in addition to seeing unhoused people routinely on the streets, there’s just feelings of unease, even if it’s not born out in the data,” Ocen said.  

Late September polling showed that just as many likely voters favored expanding treatment and rehabilitation as those who advocated for harsher sentences. 

The measure’s backers insist the changes will not require the kind of mass incarceration that led to California’s massive prison overcrowding problem of the 1990s and 2000s.

What Californians see in downtowns

Claudia Oliveira, chief executive of the Downtown Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, said businesses in the city’s commercial center have had to make adjustments since the pandemic to combat retail theft — a Burlington Coat Factory, she said, moved all of its merchandise to the store’s second floor for a while because of repeated thefts on the ground floor. 

“It’s not something that we should be angry about, but more sad that we are in a place where people are not healthy and people are still living in scarcity where they have to steal,” she said. 

“Sometimes people say ‘It’s just property crime, so why do you care, they have insurance.’ Which is not always true. They have deductibles. I’ve seen small businesses closed after being looted. And it’s not always true that they have the resources to get back on their feet, especially downtown.”

Oliveira said she could not vote on Prop. 36 because she is undocumented. But she said she supported the measure because she expects it to connect people with substance abuse or mental health issues to social services, while preventing theft on the scale California has seen since the start of the pandemic. 

Jeff Ashook, 48, said his life in downtown Los Angeles has changed for the worse. 

“I started working here in downtown Los Angeles, before the pandemic, and I was living in Glendale at the time, and, yeah, I parked about, maybe, oh, about a half mile away from where I work,” he said. “And I felt safe walking to work. I did.

“Post pandemic — the homeless people came back, but the police officers never did.” 

Ashook said he now lives downtown but drives the five blocks to work, out of fear for his safety. 

“And I’ve had coworkers who were actually, like, physically assaulted. A few coworkers that ended up having to go to the hospital during that short distance that I was walking,” he said. “So yeah, like I said, it’s made me a bit more jaded.”

Ultimately, Ashook said he could not support Prop. 36 because of the projected costs. 

“I don’t like that the fiscal impact (is) ranging from several tens of millions of dollars to a low hundreds of millions,” he said. “That’s a lot of money. And it doesn’t say where that money’s coming from.”

Voters changing priorities on California crime

Ultimately, Lofstrom said, it’s not really a contradiction to have voted for Prop. 47 in 2014 and also for Prop. 36 this year. 

In 2014, the state urgently needed to reduce its prison population, for practical reasons and because of a judicial order to keep the population no higher than 137.5% of the prison system’s capacity. 

Today, the urgency is pushing in the other direction, he said. But the underlying causes for the increases in shoplifting and overall property crime are still unclear, he said. 

“We don’t know what’s contributing to the increases in retail theft. We don’t know how much of this is driven by economic and social challenges that leads to shoplifting,” he said. 

Even with Prop. 36 on the books, Lofstrom said much about the measure’s implementation is still to be determined.  

“Will cops arrest for it?” he asked. “Will prosecutors pursue these charges? It’s uncertain how all this will play out.”

Joe Garcia is a California Local News fellow

California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 36 on Tuesday, capping a chaotic 10 months of bargaining and wrangling at the state Capitol where Democratic leaders unsuccessfully sought to preserve a decade of criminal justice reform.

Instead, the campaign to increase penalties for theft and repeated convictions for drug possession looks to have won out.

Prop. 36, opposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, reclassiffies some misdemeanor theft and drug crimes as felonies.

The measure also creates a new category of crime — a “treatment-mandated felony.” People who don’t contest criminal charges after multiple drug possession convictions could complete drug treatment instead of going to prison, but if they don’t finish treatment, they still face up to three years in prison. 

Property crime spiked in California after the pandemic while the state, counties and local governments have struggled to contain and control sidewalk encampments of homeless people. 

Prop. 36 was pitched by supporters as a solution to those problems Led by the retail industry, they pledged that the measure would target drug traffickers and people who commit multiple acts of retail theft.

They raised about $17 million for the measure, which in addition to big checks from major retailers also included contributions from the California District Attorneys Association and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

Opponents raised about $7.7 million, which included contributions from the ACLU, teachers unions and the labor organization Service Employees International Union.

Prop. 36 reverses some of the changes California voters made to the criminal justice system a decade ago with Proposition 47, which lowered the penalties for some crimes while seeking to reduce the state’s then-swollen prison population. 

Polls leading up the election consistently showed a large majority of likely voters supported Prop. 36. Several Democratic big city mayors and district attorneys threw their support behind it, too, despite Newsom’s opposition. 

“Tonight, California voters have spoken with a clear voice on the triple epidemics of retail theft, homelessness and fatal drug overdoses plaguing our state,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said in a written statement. “In supporting Proposition 36, they said yes to treatment.  They said yes to accountability.  And they said yes to putting common sense before partisanship, so we can stop the suffering in our communities.

What led to Prop. 36?

Since California voters passed Prop. 47 in 2014, prosecutors, police and big box retailers have blamed the law for an increase in property crimes and homelessness. Prop. 36 is their attempt to unwind some elements of the previous initiative. 

During the pandemic, the rate of shoplifting and commercial burglaries skyrocketed, especially in Los Angeles, Alameda, San Mateo and Sacramento counties. Statewide, the Public Policy Institute of California found that reported shoplifting of merchandise worth up to $950 soared 28% over the past five years. That’s the highest observed level since 2000. 

Combining shoplifting with commercial burglaries, the institute’s researchers found that total reported thefts were 18% higher than in 2019.

Another facet of pandemic-era shoplifting were viral videos of mobs of people rushing into stores and grabbing whatever they could before fleeing. Prop. 36 allows felony sentences for theft to be extended by three years if three or more people commit the crime together. 

What will California crime measure cost?

The Legislative Analyst’s Office forecasts that the measure will cost tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars annually. 

Those costs are chiefly from placing a few thousand more people in prison and putting them in for longer terms. The rest of the costs to the state will be accrued in the court system, where felonies take longer to prosecute than misdemeanors, and where the county court systems will have to create new processes to handle the measure’s new category of crime, a treatment-mandated felony. 

Some of those costs will also be borne by the county court systems themselves, which the Legislative Analyst’s Office predicts will amount to tens of millions each year. 

Who supported Prop. 36?

Supporters pitched Prop. 36 as a way to combat homelessness, which is up by more than 50% since Prop. 47 passed. The reason, supporters say, is that drug dependence pushes people to the street, and increasing the penalties for drug possession is the only way to force people into treatment. 

Supporters also say Prop. 36 is a good middle ground between California’s tough-on-crime days, which pushed prison capacity past its breaking point, and the last decade under Prop. 47, which they say created “loopholes in state law that criminals exploit to avoid accountability for fentanyl trafficking and repeat retail theft.”

Who opposed Prop. 36?

Opponents, including the governor and Democratic leadership, say that no studies on criminal justice or homelessness support the idea that harsher punishment — or the threat of harsher punishment — prevents crime or gets people off the street. 

The measure’s opponents include the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, the Alliance for Safety and Justice and the California Democratic Party. 

The measure’s opponents argued Prop. 36 marks a return to the war on drugs, which they said California voters rejected a decade ago with Prop. 47.  

Newsom did not put any money into opposing the measure, but he has called attention to its potential to drive up spending on the justice system.

“It’s the prevailing wind, and I understand it. I just hope people take the time to understand what they’re supporting,” Newsom said in remarks to reporters last week. “It’s just drug policy reform. It’s unfunded and unfortunately, it may impact some existing drug treatment and mental health services.”

Native American children in California’s foster care system are frequently placed in non-relative, non-native homes. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, ensuring child welfare agencies investigate ancestry, contested cases still emerge. This story explores the long-standing issues and the ongoing fight to protect Native foster care rights in California. Read the full story.

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A tough-on-crime ballot measure that appears destined to pass could lead to more Californians being deported, immigrant advocates warn. 

Proposition 36 would reclassify certain misdemeanor drug and theft offenses as felonies, which means immigrants convicted of those crimes are more likely to face deportation if they have a case before an immigration court, the advocates said. 

“It is not an understatement to say that if Prop. 36 passes, more Californians, including green-card holders, including refugees, will be deported,” said Grisel Ruiz, a supervising attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. “The impacts will be pretty disastrous.” 

In California, where almost half of all children have at least one parent who is an immigrant, advocates are worried the measure could have ripple effects for families and communities. The initiative on the Nov. 5 ballot would allow prosecutors to impose stricter and longer sentences by using prior convictions as sentence enhancements. 

Under this new system, a simple drug possession charge with prior convictions could be considered an “aggravated felony” conviction in immigration court, which triggers the most severe penalties possible. In almost all cases, a person in immigration court with an “aggravated felony” on their record faces mandated deportation for life and loses all chances of immigration relief, Ruiz said.  

Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig, a Prop. 36 supporter, said the measure does not enhance the risks for immigrants any more than a retail and property crime package of bills the Legislature recently passed and the governor signed. 

“The immigration argument to me is just a red herring because DAs already have a proven track record of working to mitigate unreasonable immigration consequences,” Reisig said. 

The package of retail crime bills turns certain thefts into felonies but does not address drug offenses.

In general, supporters of Prop. 36 have described as overblown concerns that the measure would inflict devastating consequences for minor offenses. The measure mainly targets adult repeat offenders, they say. The state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office predicts the initiative would increase California’s prison population of 90,000 inmates by a few thousand.

Immigration courts may consider “dismissed” felonies

The goal of Prop. 36’s harsher sentences is to reduce drug-related crimes by steering repeat offenders toward treatment rather than prison; after finishing treatment, defendants can have their charges dismissed. 

But federal immigration courts do not typically recognize dismissals that follow the successful completion of such diversion programs, Ruiz said. 

Reisig disputed this, saying treatment means a “conviction is completely expunged” and that there is “zero risk of an immigration consequence.” 

Devin Chatterton, the directing attorney at Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said people are often confused and unaware that any post-conviction relief received in state criminal court is not recognized in immigration court.   

“Even if the criminal judge exercises some lenience or exercises some discretion, that discretion is not carried into the immigration proceedings,” she said. “That is all well and good for criminal court. But the immigration courts do not recognize a whole host of rehabilitative and relief-based things such as dismissal in state court.”

Chatterton said the results have devastating impacts on people, families and the community: “This is a way families become separated. People lose their parents. People lose their brothers or sisters, their moms, their dads. It’s really heartbreaking.”  

Some immigrants told CalMatters they are concerned about the ramifications of Prop. 36. 

“It’s scary,” said Jessica Sanchez, 29, whose mother brought her to the United States without federal authorization when she was a baby. Her family was fleeing violence-stricken Michocán, Mexico. Sanchez has been incarcerated in the past. She now works at Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit focused on gang rehabilitation and re-entry. 

Though she wouldn’t be facing deportation for past convictions under Prop. 36, Sanchez said it’s troubling to see the progress California has made protecting immigrant communities potentially undone. 

“To see that in one vote, in one year, everything can get taken back ten years — it’s scary because how long it took us to get here,” she said. “It’s scary because people lose hope.”   

Strong support from voters

Officially titled the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, Prop. 36 has strong voter support despite opposition from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, polls indicate. 

Earlier this month, UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies found that 60% of likely voters support Prop. 36, with most backers citing as their reason the measure’s harsher punishments for repeat offenders.  A new poll by the Bay Area News Group and Joint Venture Silicon Valley of more than 1,650 registered voters in the traditionally left-leaning Bay Area found 70% of respondents supported Proposition 36 while 20% were opposed. 

 Also supporting the measure are the Democratic mayors of San Francisco, San Jose, and San Diego. California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated it could cost the state ”several tens of millions of dollars to the low hundreds of millions of dollars annually” plus tens of millions of dollars at the local level. 

Supporters of Prop. 36 say the measure will rectify some of the shortcomings of an earlier ballot initiative, Proposition 47. Approved by voters ten years ago, Prop. 47 sought to reduce California’s severe prison overcrowding by reclassifying as misdemeanors six felony theft and drug crimes, including shoplifting and simple drug possession. It funneled the resulting cost savings into drug and mental health treatment and services for victims of crime and at-risk students. Since then, participation fell sharply in California’s optional drug courts, which offer treatment as an alternative to a conviction. Meanwhile, prosecutors, police, and big box retailers like Walmart and Target blamed the law for an increase in property crimes and homelessness. 

But Prop. 36 can produce life-altering consequences for anyone who is not a U.S. citizen, including long-time permanent residents, green card holders and DACA recipients, even over normally minor crimes.

Currently in California, theft of items worth $950 or less is generally a misdemeanor. Prop. 36 would make this crime a felony for people who have two or more past convictions for certain related crimes like shoplifting, burglary, or carjacking. The sentence, beyond any fallout in immigration court, would be up to three years in county jail or state prison. 

In California, where one in every four people is foreign-born, immigrants face far greater rates of poverty and lack full access to social programs. The poverty rate for foreign-born Californians was 17.6%, compared to 11.5% for U.S.-born residents; poverty among undocumented immigrants was 29.6%. Additionally, 41% of undocumented children and young adults between the ages of 0 and 26 in California are living in poverty, according to Nourish California, an organization that fights hunger. 

Sanchez said the state should address that poverty rather than trying to crack down on the issue through the criminal justice system. 

“I’m not saying stealing is the right way to do things, but what would you do if you were hungry? “ Sanchez said. “Or if you had children at home who were hungry?”