Judges throughout California are violating the state’s Racial Justice Act by sentencing minority defendants to much longer terms than whites for crimes such as robbery and burglary, according to advocates for inmates in multiple legal actions to be filed Monday. They are the first to invoke the 2021 state law, the only one of its kind in the nation, to challenge widespread disparities in sentencing.
“A white person and a Black person convicted of the same offense who are similarly situated should get the same sentence,” said John Fowler, senior counsel with the nonprofit Legal Defense Fund, one of the groups representing the inmates.
But information obtained from state prison officials under California’s Public Records Act shows that in Los Angeles County, for example, sentences for Black offenders convicted of robbery are 36% higher than sentences for white offenders with similar records, the lawyers said. They said Hispanic defendants suffer similar disparities. And three-strikes sentences — terms of up to life in prison for convicts with two or more previous felony convictions — are far more likely to be imposed on racial minorities…