#resentencing

#resentencing

The law is meant to offer hope to people who are facing long sentences for crimes related to their victimization: women who kill their abusers, for instance, or victims of sex trafficking who harm the people who have trafficked them. These people are often referred to as criminalized survivors, recognizing their dual status as victims and defendants. Similar laws have already been passed in California, Illinois, New York, Georgia, and Oklahoma and proposed in several other states.

When Pamela Price was sworn in as Alameda County District Attorney in 2023, she promised a reckoning with the criminal legal system's injustices, including police and prosecutorial misconduct. And she brought a new philosophy to the DA's office, focusing on rehabilitation instead of punishment for youth, and reducing the use of prosecutorial tools like enhancements additional charges that add time to defendants' sentences.

State parole officials had not yet publicly announced that Erik Menendez would remain behind bars, but word of the outcome was already spreading among his family members early Thursday evening. Stunned and angry at the decision, some relatives took to social media just as news broke that Menendez, 54, had been denied parole for the 1989 shotgun murders of his parents, a grisly crime committed with his older brother, Lyle.

Michael Avenatti was resentenced Thursday to 11 years in prison for dodging taxes and stealing millions of dollars from clients, slightly more than the original sentence.