California
Legal Reform Advocates: Racial Justice Act Will Reshape California Death Row
When California’s Racial Justice Act turns into relevant to the instances of prisoners on the state’s loss of life row starting in January 2023, it is going to vastly reshape the authorized panorama of the state’s loss of life penalty, authorized reform advocates say.
The California Racial Justice Act for All, handed by the state legislature on August 28, 2020 and signed into regulation by Gov. Gavin Newsom September 29, gives death-row prisoners retroactive aid from convictions or loss of life sentences that had been obtained “on the premise of race, ethnicity, or nationwide origin.” The regulation, specialists say, has the potential to vacate tons of of loss of life sentences imposed within the state because the Nineteen Seventies.
“That is the most important blow to the loss of life penalty” since Newsom declared a moratorium on executions and dismantled the state’s execution chamber, stated Natasha Minsker, a lawyer and coverage adviser for the authorized reform group Good Justice California, which pushed for passage of the invoice. Underneath the brand new regulation, “a variety of instances will get one other look,” she advised the San Francisco Chronicle, and “[i]f the regulation is utilized the best way it was meant, nearly all of these loss of life sentences must be eliminated.”
“Black, brown and Indigenous communities have been stricken by racist insurance policies and overrepresented in our prisons and courts for much too lengthy,” Fatimeh Khan, co-director of the American Mates Service Committee’s California Therapeutic Justice Program, stated. “For these incarcerated resulting from racial bias, [the new law] gives a path ahead to struggle the systemic racism that has contaminated our authorized system.”
The act, which already has been utilized to bar prosecutors from in search of the loss of life penalty due to racist feedback and discriminatory conduct by police and prosecutors in pending instances, requires courts to overturn a capital conviction or loss of life sentence when the decide, a lawyer, a regulation enforcement officer, an knowledgeable witness, or a juror within the case “exhibited bias or animus in the direction of the defendant due to the defendant’s race, ethnicity, or nationwide origin” or “used racially discriminatory language in regards to the defendant’s race, ethnicity, or nationwide origin.” As soon as a capital conviction or loss of life sentence has been overturned, the regulation prohibits the state from once more in search of or imposing the loss of life penalty.
The regulation additionally requires vacating death-row prisoners’ convictions and/or sentences when “[r]ace, ethnicity, or nationwide origin was an element” within the prosecution’s train of discretionary jury strikes or when county prosecutors charged or convicted them and others of their race, ethnicity, or nationwide origin of capital homicide in circumstances wherein equally located defendants of different races, ethnicities, or nationwide origins confronted non-capital costs or obtained lesser sentences. Aid can also be required when a defendant’s loss of life sentence constituted a “extra extreme sentence … than was imposed on different equally located people convicted of the identical offense, and longer or extra extreme sentences had been extra ceaselessly imposed” within the county primarily based on the race, ethnicity, or nationwide origin of the sufferer.
The legislative sponsor of the brand new regulation, Meeting Member Ash Kalra (D–San Jose), stated the retroactive software of the Racial Justice Act will present the courts a chance “to meaningfully tackle the stark racial disparities in our sentencing historical past.”
The Dying Penalty Info Middle’s Dying Penalty Census has recognized 1,140 loss of life sentences imposed on 1,076 capital defendants in California because the Nineteen Seventies. Whereas U.S. census 2021 inhabitants estimates
point out that African People comprise 6.5% of California’s inhabitants — a share that has remained secure for the previous fifty years — they represent 34.2% of these sentenced to loss of life (368) within the state. Against this, non-Latinx whites, who’ve comprised from 78% of the state’s inhabitants in 1970 to 35.2% in 2021, symbolize 37.0% of these sentenced to loss of life (398). The state’s Latinx inhabitants has ranged from 12% of California’s inhabitants in 1970 to 40.2% in 2021 and represents 23.4% of these sentenced to loss of life (252).
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that 28% of these at the moment incarcerated in California state prisons are Black, 45.4% are Latinx, and 20% are white.
California
Caitlyn Jenner says she'd 'destroy' Kamala Harris in hypothetical race to be CA gov
SAN FRANCISCO – Caitlyn Jenner, the gold-medal Olympian-turned reality TV personality, is considering another run for Governor of California. This time, she says, if she were to go up against Vice President Kamala Harris, she would “destroy her.”
Jenner, who publicly came out as transgender nearly 10 years ago, made a foray into politics when she ran as a Republican during the recall election that attempted to unseat Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021. Jenner only received one percent of the vote and was not considered a serious candidate.
Jenner posted this week on social media that she’s having conversations with “many people” and hopes to have an announcement soon about whether she will run.
Caitlyn Jenner speaks at the 4th annual Womens March LA: Women Rising at Pershing Square on January 18, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images)
She has also posted in Trumpian-style all caps: “MAKE CA GREAT AGAIN!”
As for VP Harris, she has not indicated any future plans for when she leaves office. However, a recent poll suggests Harris would have a sizable advantage should she decide to run in 2026. At that point, Newsom cannot run again because of term limits.
If Jenner decides to run and wins, it would mark the nation and state’s first transgender governor.
California
Northern California 6-year-old, parents hailed as heroes for saving woman who crashed into canal
LIVE OAK — A six-year-old and her parents are being called heroes by a Northern California community for jumping into a canal to save a 75-year-old woman who drove off the road.
It happened on Larkin Road near Paseo Avenue in the Sutter County community of Live Oak on Monday.
“I just about lost her, but I didn’t,” said Terry Carpenter, husband of the woman who was rescued. “We got more chances.”
Terry said his wife of 33 years, Robin Carpenter, is the love of his life and soulmate. He is grateful he has been granted more time to spend with her after she survived her car crashing off a two-lane road and overturning into a canal.
“She’s doing really well,” Terry said. “No broken bones, praise the Lord.”
It is what some call a miracle that could have had a much different outcome without a family of good Samaritans.
“Her lips were purple,” said Ashley Martin, who helped rescue the woman. “There wasn’t a breath at all. I was scared.”
Martin and her husband, Cyle Johnson, are being hailed heroes by the Live Oak community for jumping into the canal, cutting Robin out of her seat belt and pulling her head above water until first responders arrived.
“She was literally submerged underwater,” Martin said. “She had a back brace on. Apparently, she just had back surgery. So, I grabbed her brace from down below and I flipped her upward just in a quick motion to get her out of that water.”
The couple said the real hero was their six-year-old daughter, Cayleigh Johnson.
“It was scary,” Cayleigh said. “So the car was going like this, and it just went boom, right into the ditch.”
Cayleigh was playing outside and screamed for her parents who were inside the house near the canal.
I spoke with Robin from her hospital bed over the phone who told us she is in a lot of pain but grateful.
“The thing I can remember is I started falling asleep and then I was going over the bump and I went into the ditch and that’s all I remember,” Robin said.
It was a split-second decision for a family who firefighters said helped save a stranger’s life.
“It’s pretty unique that someone would jump in and help somebody that they don’t even know,” said Battalion Chief for Sutter County Fire Richard Epperson.
Robin is hopeful that she will be released from the hospital on Wednesday in time to be home for Thanksgiving.
“She gets Thanksgiving and Christmas now with her family and grandkids,” Martin said.
Terry and Robin are looking forward to eventually meeting the family who helped save Robin’s life. The family expressed the same feelings about meeting the woman they helped when she is out of the hospital.
“I can’t wait for my baby to get home,” Terry said.
California
California may exclude Tesla from EV rebate program
California Gov. Gavin Newsom may exclude Tesla and other automakers from an electric vehicle (EV) rebate program if the incoming Trump administration scraps a federal tax credit for electric car purchases.
Newsom proposed creating a new version of the state’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Program, which was phased out in 2023 after funding more than 594,000 vehicles and saving more than 456 million gallons of fuel, the governor’s office said in a news release on Monday.
“Consumers continue to prove the skeptics wrong – zero-emission vehicles are here to stay,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re not turning back on a clean transportation future – we’re going to make it more affordable for people to drive vehicles that don’t pollute.”
The proposed rebates would be funded with money from the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which is funded by polluters under the state’s cap-and-trade program, the governor’s office said. Officials did not say how much the program would cost or save consumers.
NEBRASKA AG LAUNCHES ASSAULT AGAINST CALIFORNIA’S ELECTRIC VEHICLE PUSH
They would also include changes to promote innovation and competition in the zero-emission vehicles market – changes that could prevent automakers like Tesla from qualifying for the rebates.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who relocated Tesla’s corporate headquarters from California to Texas in 2021, responded to the possibility of having Tesla EVs left out of the program.
“Even though Tesla is the only company who manufactures their EVs in California! This is insane,” Musk wrote on X, which he also owns.
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Those buying or leasing Tesla vehicles accounted for about 42% of the state’s rebates, The Associated Press reported, citing data from the California Air Resources Board.
Newsom’s office told Fox Business Digital that the proposal is intended to foster market competition, and any potential market cap is subject to negotiation with the state Legislature.
Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
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TSLA | TESLA INC. | 338.59 | -13.97 | -3.96% |
“Under a potential market cap, and depending on what the cap is, there’s a possibility that Tesla and other automakers could be excluded,” the governor’s office said. “But that’s again subject to negotiations with the legislature.”
Newsom’s office noted that such market caps have been part of rebate programs since George W. Bush’s administration in 2005.
Federal tax credits for EVs are currently worth up to $7,500 for new zero-emission vehicles. President-elect Trump has previously vowed to end the credit.
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California has surpassed 2 million zero-emission vehicles sold, according to the governor’s office. The state, however, could face a $2 billion budget deficit next year, Reuters reported, citing a non-partisan legislative estimate released last week.
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