The Racial Justice Act 2020
On February 5, Judge David Goldstein, a former public defender and past chair of the Diversity/Bench-Bar Outreach committee, removed all gang enhancements that could have resulted in life without parole sentences for the four men charged with the murder on the basis that the case was tainted by racism. It was the second time Goldstein ruled that anti-Black bias had shaped elements of the case, and by the time it was concluded, he’d also removed special circumstance allegations and firearm enhancements. Facing radically reduced sentences and charges, all four defendants quickly made no contest to the charges and the case was brought to a sudden end. Goldstein’s actions, which follow the introduction of California’s Racial Justice Act, essentially set a precedent for a two-tiered justice system in which non-Whites can have aggravating factors in their criminal behavior, often the defining factor of the crime itself (e.g. gang motivation), ignored in court. The very concept of justice is therefore made subservient to a new need to protect non-White criminals and, in the longer term, to ensure they spend less time behind bars.
The idea for a Racial Justice Act was first introduced in 2019 by California state assembly member Marc Levine, former Chairman of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus and current Regional Director of ADL Central Pacific. In 2015, Levine already exhibited his Jewish activist credentials when he contributed to a legislative package titled “Immigrants Shape California.” He drafted legislation providing $3 million in legal aid for undocumented immigrants, and publicly announced “immigrants are welcome and we will do everything we can to help them achieve legal status.” In 2019, with “AB 1798, the California Racial Justice Act,” Levine proposed that death penalty sentences on non-White criminals be postponed until it was determined “if race resulted in a sentence of capital punishment.” Levine’s bill failed, but he re-emerged as co-author of a more expansive proposal a year later, along with Jewish assembly members Scott Weiner and Laura Friedman, and several non-White assembly members.
