In California a jail sentence is merely a suggestion, not a fact.
“Montemayor, the father of three, was shot in the head as he tried to escape. He died, his final act a desperate act of love to save his wife — and children — 7, 9 and 11. His family survived. There was no money.
Seventeen-year-old gang member Gerardo Lopez was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for shooting Montemayor. Three co-defendants were sentenced to death.
Twenty-two years later, Lopez is 39 years old and he’s free. Lopez was resentenced not once, but twice — and released after having his life without the possibility of parole reduced. First to 50 years to life because he was three months shy of 18 when he murdered Montemayor and then reduced down to juvenile probation due to new resentencing laws and Prop. 57 mandates on juveniles.”
This is not a one-off. It is how our system works. No victim can count on a guilty judgement being carried out to the full extent of the law. This is causing us to be less safe.
Todd Spitzer: There’s no truth in sentencing in California anymore
By Todd Spitzer, Press Enterprise, 12/16/24 https://www.pressenterprise.com/2024/12/16/todd-spitzer-theres-no-truth-in-sentencing-in-california-anymore/
Buena Park businessman David Montemayor was running for his life when he jumped out of the moving car.
He was also running to keep his wife and three young children safe from the gang members who had kidnapped him at gunpoint and were driving him home to steal cash they thought he had hidden in his garage.
Montemayor, the father of three, was shot in the head as he tried to escape. He died, his final act a desperate act of love to save his wife — and children — 7, 9 and 11. His family survived. There was no money.
Seventeen-year-old gang member Gerardo Lopez was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for shooting Montemayor. Three co-defendants were sentenced to death.
Twenty-two years later, Lopez is 39 years old and he’s free. Lopez was resentenced not once, but twice — and released after having his life without the possibility of parole reduced. First to 50 years to life because he was three months shy of 18 when he murdered Montemayor and then reduced down to juvenile probation due to new resentencing laws and Prop. 57 mandates on juveniles.
Because there is no truth in sentencing in California. And so-called criminal justice reform has changed law after law to benefit California’s most coldblooded killers, allowing them to be resentenced and be put back on the street without ever having to prove they are no longer a danger to society. Lopez is not alone. There are no less than 11 different law provisions to allow convicted felons to petition for resentencing, automatic sealing of arrest records and expungement (as if it never happened), including allowing resentencing petitions to be filed by prisoners who only have to demonstrate that they have the ability to be rehabilitated — not that they actually have changed.
There are so many resentencing options available to convicted murderers that I created an entire unit at the Orange County District Attorney’s Office to fight these injustices.
In 2001, 17-year-old Steven J. Cook stabbed Chuck Weeks, a 139-pound gay man, repeatedly in the head with a pair of scissors, piercing his brain, and then left him in a pool of blood while he ransacked his apartment. When Cook saw Weeks crawling toward a phone for help, Cook used his shoelace to strangle Weeks to death. Cook then stomped on Weeks’ chest so hard, he left the imprint of his shoe.
Cook spent the next two days wearing Weeks’ clothes including the dead man’s underwear, sleeping in Weeks’ bed and stealing anything of value while Weeks lay dead on the floor.
The images of Weeks’ mutilated body on the floor, blood staining the tan carpet crimson, are haunting. They have taken up permanent residence in the minds of the homicide detective assigned to catch his killer, the prosecutor who prosecuted him and the family members who are left with the horrific details of Weeks’ death that will be forever intwined with the happiness of his life. They are inextricable — and unforgettable.
But the Parole Board is spared from seeing those photographs. They get to shield themselves from bearing witness to the violence. Under California law, the gruesome details do not matter and cannot be considered as a factor for denying release. The crime scene photographs cannot be presented. The only factors that can be considered — and only through the insensitive lens of a video conference now that parole hearings are no longer in person — is whether the inmate is so-called rehabilitated.
The only ones who know the true evil that lurks behind the prisoner number asking for an early release are the people who lived through it — and have to relive it every day.
The Parole Board released Cook after a December 2020 parole hearing — determining, without ever hearing the brutal details of the death of Chuck Weeks or from his mother and brother, that Cook was no longer a danger to society. The Parole Board was wrong.
Not surprisingly, Cook violated parole when he threw his girlfriend down the stairs and was sent back to prison. But instead of being recommitted to his life sentence, a San Francisco judge ordered Cook released after just 180 days — because that is now the maximum allowed under the law for a parole violation — even for a cold-blooded killer. He’s free, too.
Montemayor’s widow, a stay-at-home mom, had her life ripped apart the second her husband’s kidnappers opened fire. In an instant she became the breadwinner, a single parent holding her young family together, the family her husband has sacrificed himself to save.
For a decade, she kept vigil in Orange County courtrooms as all six defendants were convicted one after another.
With the last conviction, the nightmare was over, she was told. In reality, it was just beginning.
Gerardo Lopez, the monster she was told was never getting out of prison, walked right out the front door.
And Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature are holding the door wide open for Lopez, for Cook, and the other convicted felons who walk out the front door of California’s prisons every day — because there is no truth in sentencing in California.
Todd Spitzer is the district attorney of Orange County.
