A cell block at Folsom Prison. Photo: Grace2GrowThe stories behind Gov. Jerry Brown’s nine recent sentence commutations reveal tangled lives marked by murder, abuse, addiction and determined efforts by criminals — usually over decades — to turn their lives around. Here are their stories.
In the wake of the recent tragedy in Vallejo involving a long-ago paroled life term inmate we are again hearing calls for a reduction in the still small number of life-term prisoners who are granted parole. The usual unfounded accusations and unsubstantiated allegations of continuing danger from all released lifers are again making the rounds.
Big Soda spent big bucks. That’s how it defeated ballot measures to create soda taxes in two California towns.
In Richmond, in the Bay Area, and in El Monte, east of Los Angeles, the measures would have added a penny-an-ounce tax on soda. Had the taxes passed, they were projected to raise millions of