San Rafael – San Quentin Death Row inmate Mitchell Sims filed a lawsuit in Marin County Superior Court August 2, alleging, among other claims, that regulators failed to adequately consider other execution methods as an alternative to the three-drug cocktail. The suit was filed in response to the new procedures approved by the Office of Administrative Law on July 30. California’s last execution was in 2006.
Sacramento – Selected parole agents in Kern, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Sonoma counties began testing an intense new procedure for parole supervision of 48 parolees, down from the usual 70 offenders. The new policy mandates agents meet with parolees’ family members, drug counselors and prospective employers or job-training agencies before and after their release from prison.
Washington, DC – President Obama signed landmark legislation pushing back the 100-to-1 disparity that guides federal sentencing for crack versus powder cocaine. Before, only five grams of crack cocaine (the weight of a few pennies) triggered a mandatory five-year federal prisons sentence versus 500 grams of powder cocaine for the same sentence.