Law lets juveniles appeal life sentences Brown signs bill letting inmates seek lesser sentences for crimes as minors

Senator Leland Yee speaks with the media in his office on Tuesday, October 25, 2011. He was announcing that a SF resident has been paid by Mayor Ed Lee's campaign or one of his independent expenditure committees. less Senator Leland Yee speaks with the media in his office on Tuesday, October 25, 2011. He was announcing that a SF resident has been paid by Mayor Ed Lee's campaign or one of his independent expenditure ... more Photo: Susana Bates, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Susana Bates, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Law lets juveniles appeal life sentences 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Prisoners sentenced to a lifetime behind bars for crimes committed as juveniles will soon be able to appeal to the courts for shorter prison terms under a much-debated bill signed Sunday by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Also Sunday, Brown vetoed a number of bills, including one that would have given nannies, housekeepers and other domestic employees overtime pay, two that offered farmworkers more protection from abusive employers, and another that would have prevented people convicted of low-level crimes from being deported. All three were supported by advocates for the state's growing Latino community.

That same constituency got a win, however, with the governor's approval of a measure that will pave the way for California to issue driver's licenses to some young, undocumented immigrants who qualify for President Obama's new "deferred action" policy. A spokesman for Brown called AB2189 by Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, "an obvious next step" after the Obama administration's June decision to allow some young immigrants with no criminal records to apply for protection from deportation.

Sunday was the final day for the governor to take action on hundreds of bills approved by lawmakers in August, and he waited until then to sign and veto some of the most controversial measures sent to his desk this year.

'A good day for kids'

It took state Sen. Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat, two years to get SB9, his bill on juvenile offenders, through the Legislature. Starting Jan. 1, it will give approximately 300 Californians serving life without the possibility of parole the opportunity to ask the courts to reduce their sentence to 25 years to life. More than one-third of those inmates were convicted under California's aiding and abetting laws, which allow for accomplices to be convicted of first-degree murder.

To qualify for appeal, inmates must have committed the crime before they turned 18, served 15 years in prison, worked toward rehabilitation and demonstrated remorse. Even if the sentence were reduced, the offenders would have to appear before the state's conservative parole board before they could be released.

"It's a good day for kids," said Yee, a child psychologist who has long argued that youth offenders should be treated differently because their brains are still developing. "I'm just relieved that, for those lives that can be salvaged, there is now that opportunity. ... We tried to find the right balance of protecting kids' futures, yet at the same time recognizing the pain of the victims and the families of the victims."

The United States is the only country where juvenile offenders can receive a life-without-parole prison sentence, and many states, including Texas, have eliminated the punishment in recent years.

Domestic employees and farmworkers, however, did not fare as well.

In vetoing AB889, Brown wrote that the unknown, potentially detrimental consequences of providing workplace protections such as overtime pay and meal breaks to domestic workers outweigh the benefit of "improving the circumstances of these workers." The governor cited concerns over how families who employ such workers would fulfill the requirement, and said a drafting error in the bill language would make most state-paid In-Home Supportive Services workers eligible for the increased rights, "resulting in costs to the state of over $200 million per year."

Governor's concerns

Brown questioned whether the bill, by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, would force disabled and aging adults into institutions or result in fewer jobs for domestic workers. He also cited concerns over how the state would enforce such rules.

"The bill calls for these questions to be studied by the state Department of Industrial Relations and for the department to simultaneously issue new regulations," Brown wrote. "In the face of consequences both unknown and unintended, I find it more prudent to do the studies before considering an untested legal regime for those that work in our homes."

Brown also found fault with AB2356, which would have allowed farmworkers to sue their employers if they are repeatedly deprived of shade and water, and AB2676, which would have made it a misdemeanor to deny such protections. While the bills' supporters have cited the 16 farmworker deaths in California since strict safety regulations went into effect in 2005, Brown referenced those regulations in both veto messages and argued that the regulatory process is a more appropriate place to deal with such issues.

Immigration hold

The governor also found fault with AB1081, known as the Trust Act. Also by Ammiano, the bill would have prohibited California authorities from keeping a person in jail on a federal immigration hold unless he or she has been accused or convicted of a serious or violent crime.

While Brown wrote that he agrees that "federal agents shouldn't try to coerce local law enforcement officials into detaining people who've been picked up for minor offenses and pose no reasonable threat to their community," he said AB1081 is "fatally flawed" because it does not include a number of heinous offenses in its definition of a serious crime.

"The significant flaws in this bill can be fixed, and I will work with the Legislature to see that the bill is corrected forthwith," the governor wrote.