Los Angeles County’s top prosecutor, Jackie Lacey, has recently touted the importance of justice, progress and reform.

Yet when given the opportunity to right decades of injustice, she employs obstructionist tactics ensuring punishments don’t fit their underlying crimes. If we can’t trust Jackie Lacey to engage in thoughtful, fair consideration of a person’s actions, then she is failing the very people who elected her.

In 1994, 18-year-old Michael Tirpak drove his friend Juan home from a party after Juan took PCP. On the way, Tirpak stopped to use a payphone. While Juan waited in the car, he spotted a man leaving a nearby liquor store, tried to rob him and then shot and killed him. Tirpak did not approach the victim, touch a gun, know someone had been shot, or participate in the robbery. But at trial, the prosecutors claimed Tirpak initially helped Juan identify someone to rob. Therefore, under California’s felony murder law, Tirpak received the same sentence that Juan faced, life in prison.

To most, this result seems completely unjust. And yet until recently, California’s felony murder rule allowed prosecutors to charge people with first degree murder if, during a different crime, someone died, regardless of whether the person was the shooter of even knew a shooting might happen. Even if the death was unintended, accidental or committed by another person, anyone tangentially involved in the original crime could receive up to lifetime imprisonment or, potentially, the death penalty.

But last fall, our Legislature passed Senate Bill 1437, a bill that eliminated the draconian severity of the rule. Now the felony murder rule only applies to people actually responsible for a death. The person must be involved in the actual killing or intend to kill. Under the new felony murder rule, Tirpak could still go to jail for robbery if he in fact helped choose Juan’s robbery target, but only Juan is guilty of felony murder. Unlike in 1994, today, they each would receive sentences commensurate with their individual actions.

Beginning at SB1437’s inception, Lacey and her prosecutors engaged in fearmongering and deception in an unsuccessful effort to defeat the bill. In media appearances, Lacey warned the law would let loose people “entrenched in gangs” — a flippant remark for which she provided no factual support. And in a letter to senators, Lacey asserted SB1437 would free “actual killers” — another untruth.

Contrary to the district attorney’s terror-inducing assertions, SB1437 did nothing to release from prison people who committed murder. Only people who did not participate in a person’s death are eligible to receive a new sentence based on their individual conduct, not someone else’s. And even then, those who believe they qualify must first petition a judge who may deny the request.

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L.A.’s botched job of housing the homeless But Lacey has rebuffed SB1437. She systematically seeks to block judges from resentencing those eligible under the law, even if they were not the shooter and even if they had no knowledge of the death. t. Sidestepping the question of whether Tirpak actually deserved life imprisonment, she merely asked the judge to declare SB1437 unconstitutional and refrain from resentencing Tirpak and other eligible candidates.

The judge, however, rejected Lacey’s argument and released Tirpak, who already spent 25 years in prison. But Lacey continues to fight every request for resentencing under the new law. Meanwhile, countless incarcerated people languish in prison for murders they did not commit.

Before choosing to oppose a person’s resentencing, Lacey’s office should engage in meaningful consideration of whether their individual actions warrant a felony-murder sentence under the law. In doing so, Lacey will demonstrate a true commitment to fairness and justice for all.

Taina Vargas-Edmond is founder and executive director of Initiate Justice, an advocacy group created by and for incarcerated people, formerly incarcerated people and people with incarcerated loved ones.