SB 672 Rips Open Old Wounds

Senator Susan Rubio describes herself as an advocate for crime victims. She claims this title in her official biography and when introducing legislation that impacts victims.

Her legislation, Senate Bill 672, will unnecessarily cause immense trauma to thousands of violent crime victims all over the state. These crime victims should feel betrayed by someone who claims to be one of them.

Her idea is that people who committed crimes when they were 25 or younger, who have been sentenced to life without possibility of parole and served 25 years of their term would actually get the possibility of parole. This is done 25 years after the full legal process to convict the person. Witnesses, prosecutors, judges, and communities have all moved on. Many of the victims of these crimes will not have moved on. They often live with the pain every day.

In her fact sheet for the bill, she claims victims will not lose their rights. That is silly. The victims who had closure upon sentencing will now have to relive their nightmare because they will be asked to attend a hearing about the potential release of the felon who changed their lives forever. They get to come to the hearing, great. These poor people will not feel heard at a hearing when a parole board is considering the release of someone who killed their loved one.

The Rubio fact sheet on the bill also claims that this change will not apply to the most heinous crimes. That is a complete farce. Case in point, Johnnie Malarkey, the worst mass murderer in Fresno history, confessed to killing ten people. Tax examiner Lee Grant was shot to death while riding his bicycle, and Charles Ray Martin was shot twice in the back of the head before his body was found in the back of a burned-out pickup truck. Then on May 16, 1993, Malarkey entered Fresno’s Carillo Club and was likely one of the two men who killed seven others.

Because Malarkey was under 26 years of age at the time of his crimes, he would get a parole board hearing to claim that he has rehabilitated himself in prison over the last three decades. This guy is a serial killer, yet Rubio does not think his crimes are the most heinous. Good grief.

Also, what message does this send to prosecutors? Malarkey pleaded to these crimes and got LWOP to avoid the death penalty. The local district attorneys won’t have an incentive to make these deals any longer, especially if years later those like Rubio want to undo their plea agreement by giving people like Malarkey an opportunity to walk the streets. District attorneys will just seek the death penalty, hugely increasing trial and appeal costs.

The idea that the human brain does not fully develop until the age of 26 is misplaced, providing an excuse for violent behavior. We allow people under the age of 26 to vote, serve in the legislature, in the military, and on juries. If Rubio truly believes this, then next session we should look forward to reading her legislation that prevents people under the age of 26 from serving on juries. We can’t have them making these important decisions with less than a fully-formed brain.

In testimony before the Senate Public Safety Committee, Rubio said, “As a victim’s advocate, again, and this is very important to me, I need to underscore that a victim’s voice matters to me. Their grief, their anger, and their healing are central to any conversation about justice. This bill does not ask them to forget.” Her statement could not be further from the truth. She is ripping open old wounds of victims all over the state and should pay an enormous political price for betraying the same people she attempts to associate with by referring to herself as their advocate.

SB 672 is a horrible piece of legislation that no sincere victim advocate would ever support.