Spotlighting prosecutors advocating for and embracing second-look sentencing mechanisms

At a conference a dozen years ago, I spoke about the need for second-look sentencing mechanisms and argued that prosecutors should be much more involved in reviewing past sentences.  That speech got published as Encouraging (and Even Requiring) Prosecutors to Be Second-Look Sentencers, 19 Temple Political & Civil Rights L. Rev. 429 (2010). 

I am very pleased that these ideas are finally coming into vogue, as highlighted by this new Law360 piece headlined "New Wave Of Prosecutors Push For Resentencing Laws."   I recommend this piece in full, and here are excerpts:

Washington county prosecutor Dan Satterberg knew when his state passed its three-strikes law in 1993, mandating that repeat offenders of certain crimes be sentenced to life without parole, that those sentences would one day need to be undone....

When Satterberg was elected district attorney of Washington's King County in 2007, he created a team to review cases, identify people who received life sentences under the three-strikes law and try to find a legal avenue for those people to be resentenced....

But Satterberg realized that in order to move more quickly with resentencing in more cases, he needed to have the explicit legal authority to request judges to resentence people.  So Satterberg drafted and lobbied for the passage of S.B. 6164 that gives Washington state prosecutors the power to request resentencing in the interest of justice.  The law was passed last year.

So far, Satterberg has not been able to get anyone resentenced under the new law, because the court asked prosecutors not to file these resentencing petitions in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and limited court operations. Satterberg's office, however, has identified more than 100 cases that could be eligible for resentencing under the law. The office hopes to have its first resentencing under this law in August....  "I think it's consistent with the overall mission of the prosecutor, which is to seek justice," Satterberg said about S.B. 6164. "If there are procedural barriers to seeking justice, then you need to advocate to remove those."

More state and county prosecutors are reaching the same conclusion as Satterberg that they need the power to request resentencing from judges to correct past injustices, end mass incarceration, give people second chances and divert money spent on incarceration to more effective crime prevention methods.

In April, more than 60 current and former prosecutors signed a statement by the nonprofit network Fair and Just Prosecution urging their colleagues to review decadeslong sentences in their jurisdictions and to no longer seek such sentences, except in cases where the convicted individual poses a serious safety risk....

The bill that Satterberg spearheaded was inspired by the first prosecutor-initiated resentencing law passed by California in 2018.  The California law, A.B. 2942, was drafted by Hillary Blout, a former San Francisco prosecutor who worked under Vice President Kamala Harris when she served as the district attorney of San Francisco.

After Blout served as a prosecutor for six years, she founded the nonprofit For the People in 2019 that works with prosecutors to implement resentencing legislation in their states.  Blout said that resentencing laws are important to correct failed policies that sought to achieve public safety by imprisoning people for as long as possible....

Twenty-five states including New York, Virginia and Texas are currently considering resentencing legislation, according to a report released in May by The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit research organization that aims to improve the U.S. criminal justice system and reduce the prison population.  Oregon and Illinois both passed prosecutor-initiated resentencing laws during this legislative session that were signed by their respective state governors in late June.

While these resentencing laws have the power to end harsh sentences and end mass incarceration, some advocates have criticized resentencing laws that only allow prosecutors to request resentencing.  Advocates argue that incarcerated people should also be allowed to petition courts for resentencing in their cases.  Not all prosecutors are prioritizing resentencing even when they have the power to do so, leaving incarcerated people serving overly long sentences, they say.

A few of many prior related posts:

• Highlighting new DAs working on new sentence review efforts to address excessive punishments
• "Every D.A. in America Should Open a Sentence Review Unit" 
• NACDL releases model "Second Look" sentencing legislation providing for resentencing after a decade in prison
• An awesome reading list on "Second Look Sentencing"
• "Fighting for a Second Look: Efforts in Ohio and Across the Nation"
• "Prosecutor-Driven 'Second Look' Policies Are Encouraging, But Not A Panacea"
• The Sentencing Project releases new report urging "A Second Look at Injustice" 

A sampling of my prior writing on this front through the years:

• "Sentencing is Dang Hard... And So..."
• "Re-Balancing Fitness, Fairness, and Finality for Sentences"
• "Reflecting on Parole's Abolition in the Federal Sentencing System"
• "Encouraging (and Even Requiring) Prosecutors to be Second-Look Sentencers"
• "Leveraging Marijuana Reform to Enhance Expungement Practices"
• "Turning Hope-and-Change Talk Into Clemency Action for Non-Violent Drug Offenders"
• "Exploring the Theory, Policy and Practice of Fixing Broken Sentencing Guidelines"
• "The Enduring (and Again Timely) Wisdom of the Original MPC Sentencing Provisions"