California AG Rob Bonta launches new team to investigate wrongful conviction cases
Attorney General Rob Bonta on Friday announced the creation of the California Department of Justice’s first-ever team dedicated to identifying and working to overturn wrongful convictions.
The DOJ’s new Post-Conviction Justice Unit joins a growing movement among prosecutors’ offices across the country using new exculpatory information or advancements in forensic science to review claims of wrongful conviction or innocence. Many local district attorney offices across the state, including in Sacramento, Los Angeles and Napa counties, already have similar divisions in place.
That’s in addition to a handful of Innocence Project nonprofit organizations across the state also dedicated to exonerating innocent prisoners and reforming the criminal justice system.
“Bottom line — nobody should serve time for a crime they didn’t commit and everybody deserves to be treated fairly under the law,” Bonta said at a news briefing in Oakland. “It is incumbent on prosecutors to make good faith efforts to correct injustice. That’s what we’re setting out to do with this historic unit.”
Bonta said his office currently addresses potential injustices or cases of innocence on a “one-off” basis while handing appeals of criminal convictions across the state. The new team, he said, will create an “extra layer of review to ensure integrity and transparency” and represents a more “systemic, affirmative approach to statewide post-conviction justice.”
The state’s new unit will begin by reviewing DOJ’s own cases for any errors or excessive sentencing and work to identify those with evidence of integrity issues and those that may warrant resentencing.
The division will be initially led by two Deputy Attorneys General within the Criminal Law Division. Bonta said Friday that there would be no new budget requests for the unit but rather a shuffling of funds within the department to cover the costs.
Any potential expansions to the team will depend on the number of requests for case reviews received by the unit, Bonta said.
The unit’s creation comes amid ethical questions about Bonta’s wife, Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, D- Alameda, recently being appointed to lead a budget subcommittee that oversees his department. The DOJ has an annual budget of about $1.2 billion.
The revelation, first reported by Sacramento’s NBC affiliate KCRA, has led to calls for Assemblywoman Bonta to step down from her subcommittee assignment. The committee is scheduled to discuss the Department of Justice’s budget on March 27.
On Friday, Bonta referred questions about his wife’s oversight role to the legislature, noting that state lawmakers are in charge of deciding who serves on certain committees and subcommittees.
This story was originally published February 17, 2023 at 10:30 AM.