While Sta Clara County DA Rosen slow-walks local Prop 36 enforcement, Orange County DA speeds ahead
Image by Wikimedia Commons
Todd Spitzer, Orange County's District Attorney, takes the will of people seriously, and is aggressively implementing Prop 36's common-sense criminal accountability initiative. Will the lawyers in Rosen's office take note? From the OC Register.
Californians took the law into their own hands last November, overwhelmingly approving Proposition 36 and rejecting the disastrous criminal justice reform implemented a decade ago by Prop. 47 which reclassified most drug and theft felonies to misdemeanors and took away the tools law enforcement and prosecutors need to hold criminals accountable.
It was a resounding commentary by Californians who have had enough. Lawlessness is no longer an option. Accountability and consequences are making a comeback – one vote at a time.
And the same judges whose slap-on-the wrist sentences that resulted in rampant homelessness, untreated mental illness, and out-of-control theft are now mandated by voters to fix it.
It’s been a little over three months since Prop. 36 went into effect on December 18, 2024, and here in Orange County voters are getting exactly what they demanded at the ballot box: Drug addicts are getting treatment instead of going to jail and repeat thieves are going to jail. Our judges – along with the Orange County criminal justice system and community stakeholders – are holding criminals accountable as we lead the conversation of this new reality.
Of the nearly 400 repeat theft cases submitted to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, more than 269 cases have been filed and dozens more are under review. Nearly 100 cases have been resolved with half of the defendants pleading guilty to felonies – crimes that before Prop. 36 would have been only misdemeanors.
More than 1,200 drug cases have been filed, the majority of them filed as felonies, and 135 defendants have been assessed for treatment-mandated felony programs. Twenty-nine of those defendants have pled into a treatment program, including a 41-year-old homeless man who has had 21 hard drug convictions in the last two years and a 32-year-old homeless veteran who struggles with PTSD from his time in the military and opted into treatment to address those underlying issues.
Some California counties have yet to file a single Prop. 36 drug case yet. Marin County Superior Court is threatening dismissing charges because it is an unfunded mandate.
For far too long, Californians have been forced to endure homelessness and rampant theft, and Prop. 36 appears to be the light at the end of a decades-long tunnel littered with the consequences of soft-on-crime policies.
But treatment only works if Counties have the infrastructure, the programs, and the funding to provide it.
Sen. Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, has been pushing for Prop. 36 funding to ensure every county has the resources to carry out the will of the people. Every Californian – and every elected official – should support Prop. 36 funding
It’s time to finally get to the light at the end of that very long tunnel and restore California to the Golden State.
Todd Spitzer is the district attorney of Orange County.
Read the whole thing here.
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