*As crime rates across the country continue to explode, there’s a possibility things can get even worse in California where laws are being challenged, and polices created, to mitigate punishment and sentencing for law breakers, and inmates.
These efforts to undermine public safety and the judicial system are part of a supersized liberal agenda to prioritize “criminal justice reform” despite evidence that stricter laws and policing would likely deter indiscriminate violence and crime.
Adding insult to injury, left-leaning politicians in California and other blue states have climbed on the “reform” bandwagon to gain popularity and voter support, especially from blacks and Hispanics.
Nepotism also plays a role in how criminals occasionally sidestep appropriate punishments, or evade them altogether.
For example, in April 2006, the son of a former California state Assembly speaker “was freed from prison after his manslaughter sentence was dramatically reduced in 2011 by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger,” wrote the Los Angeles Times.
Esteban Nuñez, now 32, was ordered to live in Sacramento County on parole supervision for three years.
That’s child’s play compared to what he should’ve gotten.
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Nuñez entered prison in June 2010 to serve a 16-year sentence in the stabbing death of college student Luis Santos in San Diego.
On his last day in office in 2011, Schwarzenegger commuted the sentence to seven years. Nuñez is the son of Fabian Nuñez, who was speaker of the state Assembly and a political ally while Schwarzenegger was governor.
Esteban Nuñez received credit for good behavior and was released after serving less than six years.
“Our son has paid his debt to society. He is committed to continuing the work of healing, self-reflection and spiritual growth,” the Nuñez family said in a statement.
Santos’ mother had anticipated Esteban Nuñez’s early release, and she steadfastly believes a high-level political favor is sending him home.
“It makes you sick that something like this can happen, and you have no power,” Kathy Santos told the Los Angeles Times, adding she doesn’t believe the young man has reformed.
The Santos family sued to overturn the shortened sentence, but without success.
In 2012, a Sacramento judge called the commutation “repugnant” but legal. In 2015, an appeals court wrote that “back-room dealings were apparent,” but upheld Schwarzenegger’s power to reduce the sentence.
Schwarzenegger said at the time that he acted because he thought the 16-year sentence was excessive, but he also acknowledged he was helping a friend, reported the Times.
Only five years after being controversially released from incarceration, the younger Nunez frequents the Statehouse where “in tailored suits and sleek black hair, he resembles a taller version of his father,” wrote CalMatters.org in 2020.
As a policy director for the criminal justice nonprofit program Cut50, Núñez is part of the tide “pushing California’s penal system from tough-on-crime laws toward giving criminals a second chance.”
His focus last year, as the pandemic replaced in-person lobbying with Zoom meetings: voting rights for Californians on parole, a period of government supervision for criminal offenders that typically lasts about three years.
Núñez’s transition underscores California’s increasingly liberal shift on criminal justice — he credits the leader of a prison rehabilitation program with inspiring him to pursue an advocacy career. But it also reflects the reality of Sacramento, where family ties run deep inside the Capitol.
“I think I do have a unique opportunity to use the doors that my father has worked hard to open, for the greater good,” Núñez said.
Núñez also supports reducing prison sentencing for nonviolent (and violent) offenders, he wants to eliminate the bail system in California, and he’s advocating for jail records of convicted criminals to be inaccessible after a four year period.
It seems Nunez wants to make breaking the law a less daunting and punishable deed. With advocates like him lurking around – rationalizing criminal behavior – it’s not hard to fathom why our country’s lawlessness is spiraling out of control.
That’s right – a politically connected ex-con is trying to change California laws to give more breaks to the criminals. How romantic.
It is still questionable whether Senate Bill 731 can shorten the look back timeframe to just four years, which runs counter to the federal law that requires 7 – 10 years for certain jobs and licenses.
The Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC) writes: “PORAC believes that by expanding the relief of penalties for all felonies, we are placing our communities at risk. Oftentimes, felony crimes are violent and leave behind innocent victims whose lives will never be the same. By allowing violent criminals back on the street, with their record dismissed, they will have less deterrent to commit another crime. Thus, leaving more victims in their wake.”
And when it comes to eliminating bail, we should be listening to those who are protecting the people, not those who commit the crimes.
With a $75 million budget, the Judicial Council of California launched and evaluated a two-year pretrial project in local trial courts and found that 30 percent of defendants released pretrial failed to appear for trial. A whopping 40 percent were arrested for a new offense while out on pretrial – 70 percent of defendants released pretrial either failed to appear for trial or were rearrested for a new crime.
Nunez’s bail elimination crusade is giving accused criminals a get out of jail free card.
Then again, he’s just taking a page from his father’s playbook.
Cory A. Haywood is a Southern California based writer. Contact him via: [email protected] and/or visit his blog: www.enterthehat.com, or send him a message on Twitter: @coryahaywood
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