[Women Prisoner News] Sara Kruzan to be Released on Parole!

[Diana Block]

CCWP is so glad that Governor Brown did the right thing by letting the
Parole Board's decision stand for Sara Kruzan's release!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/27/sara-kruzan-released_n_4167355.html

LOS ANGELES -- LOS ANGELES (AP) — California Gov. Jerry Brown has decided
to allow freedom to a woman who received a life sentence when she was a
teenager for killing her former pimp.

Brown decided late Friday not to take action on a state parole board's
decision to grant parole to Sara Kruzan, thereby allowing the decision to
go into effect, his spokesman Evan Westrup said Saturday.

Kruzan was 17 when she was sentenced to die in prison for the 1994 shooting
death of George Gilbert Howard in a Riverside motel room. She contended
that he sexually abused her and had groomed her since she was 11 to work
for him as a child prostitute.

Her case became a high-profile example used by state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San
Francisco, who sought to soften harsh life sentences for juveniles.

"It is justice long overdue," Yee told the Los Angeles Times. He called
Kruzan's case the "perfect example of adults who failed her, of society
failing her. You had a predator who stalked her, raped her, forced her into
prostitution, and there was no one around."

Kruzan's case garnered widespread publicity in 2010 after Human Rights
Watch posted a six-minute interview with her on YouTube.

The year culminated with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger commuting her sentence
to 25-years-to-life with the possibility of parole on his last full day in
office. Schwarzenegger said he still considered her guilty of first-degree
murder, but he sympathized with her defense that the man she killed had
sexually abused her and served as her pimp for years.

"Given Ms. Kruzan's age at the time of the murder, and considering the
significant abuse she suffered at his hands, I believe Ms. Kruzan's
sentence is excessive," the governor wrote in his commutation message, "it
is apparent that Ms. Kruzan suffered significant abuse starting at a
vulnerable age."

This January, a Riverside judge further reduced her first-degree murder
conviction to second degree, making her immediately eligible for release.

Yee's legislation to allow new sentencing hearings for juveniles sent to
prison for life without parole became law in January. In September, Brown
signed a second bill requiring parole boards to give special consideration
to juveniles tried as adults who have served at least 15 years of lengthy
sentences. Advocates estimate there are more than 1,000 prisoners already
eligible for parole hearings under that new law.

Brown's decision on Kruzan's case came nearly two weeks before the deadline
for his action, Westrup said. The parole board was expected to act on the
decision on Monday.

Kruzan is housed at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla.

Her aunt told the Associated Press she wasn't surprised by the governor's
action.

"I just wondered why it took so long," Ann Rogen of Riverside said.


-- 
*Diana*
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