(CALIFORNIA) – Today, the Stanford Law School’s Three Strikes Project, in collaboration with the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), launched an ambitious effort to combat racial discrimination in California’s criminal legal system. Relying on California’s Racial Justice Act, the Project filed petitions on behalf of 18 Black and Latino people who are serving life sentences for minor offenses, asking courts to remedy dramatic racial disparities in sentencing.
The state’s Racial Justice Act was passed following the police murder of George Floyd to address racial discrimination in California’s criminal legal system. Black and Latino people have long been disproportionately represented in California’s jail and prison population. And according to the California Prison Population Dashboards—released in October of this year—people of color in California are serving significantly longer sentences than white people for the same offenses, with no legitimate justification for these disparities. California’s draconian Three Strikes law exacerbates these disparities: nearly half of people serving a “third strike” sentence in California are Black. The Project’s clients were all sentenced under this law.
“The racial disparities in California’s justice system are alarming, pervasive and unjust. The legislature had ambitious goals to root out these disparities through the Racial Justice Act. Sadly, to date there have been few, if any, successful claims for relief under the Act. We hope that this group of cases can help break that log jam and provide a blueprint for others to follow,” said Michael Romano, Director of the Three Strikes Project.
“This collaborative effort advances a basic premise: a white person and a Black person who are similarly situated and convicted of the same crime should receive the same sentence. Nobody should serve a longer sentence based on their race. But that is exactly what is happening in California. The launch of this effort is an important step towards confronting the rampant racial bias in California’s criminal legal system,” said Janai Nelson, President and Director-Counsel of the Legal Defense Fund. “We are hopeful that the courts will seriously evaluate these petitions to remedy unfair outcomes and clear patterns of racial discrimination.”
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The Three Strikes Project represents people serving the longest and most unjust prison terms in the country: most of its clients are serving life sentences under California’s “Three Strikes” law for minor crimes. Over a decade ago, the Project pioneered “second look” re-sentencing reform, leading to early release of thousands of people unnecessarily incarcerated—and it continues to develop, enact, and implement innovative criminal law reforms to repeal and amend the harshest and least effective criminal laws across the country.
Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation’s first civil rights law organization. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multidisciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Please note that LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights.
