The bill would allow the release of murderers, who were never supposed to get out of prison.

The legislation would let certain convicted killers who have served at least 20 years, ask for parole—even if they were sentenced to the death penalty or life without parole.

This bill is Senate Bill 94, by State Senator Dave Cortese of Santa Clara. It would allow most people convicted of murder with special circumstances before 1990, petition for parole, as long as they’ve served at least 20 years of their sentence. The idea is that older inmates are much less likely to reoffend if released, so they could at least ask for their sentence to be reviewed. As you can imagine, there is intense opposition to this idea, and there’s a news conference tomorrow by a coalition of prosecutors, law enforcement personnel and victims’ rights advocates, to call for its defeat. 

For more, Doug Sovern, Brett Burkhart and Patti Reising spoke with Nina Salarno Besselman, the President of Crime Victims United and a former Sacramento County deputy district attorney, whose sister was brutally murdered on her first day of college back in 1979.