Voter-approved measure leads to prisoner releases, budget headaches for local prosecutors
Image from Shutterstock.
Corrected: A California ballot measure approved by voters in November has led to the release of hundreds of prisoners and created budget headaches for some city attorneys.
The initiative known as Proposition 47 reduced several nonviolent felonies to misdemeanors and applied retroactively, the Los Angeles Times reports. Some judges say courts could be inundated with tens of thousands of applications to reduce felony convictions to misdemeanors.
Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer says he needs to hire eight additional lawyers and seven additional legal clerks to deal with an estimated 8,800 more misdemeanor prosecutions, the Los Angeles Times reports in a different story. In Los Angeles, misdemeanors are handled by the city attorney and more serious charges are handled by the district attorney. The same is true in Long Beach, where City Prosecutor Doug Haubert estimates workload for his office will increase by 15 percent, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reports.
Among the crimes reduced to misdemeanors are drug possession, petty theft, shoplifting, receiving stolen property and writing bad checks for an amount below $950. The reduction is not allowed if the defendant has a previous conviction for more serious crimes, the Press-Telegram says. Judges also have the authority to refuse to reduce a conviction if the offender is a danger to the community.
At a meeting of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, board chairman Rex Bohn complained that the county jail population dropped 35 percent after the measure passed, KAEFTV reports. “It’s creating havoc on the streets,” he said. “We’re a few weeks into this and we’re already seeing the results.”
Updated at 11:25 a.m. to correct reference to Long Beach.
