Repeat domestic abusers targeted in Republican-led bill advancing in Legislature
A California Assembly committee moved Tuesday to increase penalties for repeat perpetrators of domestic violence but stopped short of adding the crime to the offenses covered by the state’s “Three Strikes” law, which can deal repeat offenders a life sentence.
Lawmakers skeptical of adding felony domestic violence to the three-strike list, as the bill sponsored by Rocklin Republican Assemblymember Joe Patterson originally proposed, noted that crimes resulting in great bodily injury already fall under the list and deal the most violent domestic abusers steep prison sentences.
Still, Democrat members of the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee chose to enhance the penalties for repeat domestic violence offenders, over the objections of criminal justice reform groups who argued for more focus on prevention efforts over increased incarceration. “I ... have seen firsthand a justice system where repeated abusers are not always deterred from going back and abusing their victims again, and we have to do a better job,” Committee Chairman Nick Schultz, D-Burbank, said.
Under existing law, prosecutors can choose to charge domestic violence cases with either a misdemeanor or a felony. Under the amended version of Patterson’s bill, a person already convicted of felony domestic violence would now face an automatic felony on their second conviction within a seven-year span, and an elevated possible prison sentences of four or five years, for a second offense. It would also require a probation sentence to be accompanied by a 60-day jail stay, what Schultz called “a cooling-off period,” and an increase to the current jail time minimum of 15 days.
Patterson’s bill was opposed by a range of criminal justice reform advocates, from the state’s public defenders to the American Civil Liberties Union to think tanks like the Vera Institute and Smart Justice California.
San Francisco public defender says bill is repetitive
San Francisco Public Defender Manohar Raju, who was elected to his post by voters in that city, said the bill was repetitive, as measures already exist in the law to punish repeat domestic violence offenders and to enhance penalties for those abusers who act with the most cruelty or force against their victims. Raju urged lawmakers to consider more funding for treatment or crime prevention programs instead of trying to tie judges into issuing longer prison sentences.
“Longer sentences destabilize communities and particularly harm the children of people who are incarcerated,” Raju told lawmakers at Tuesday’s hearing. “I suggest that the Legislature prioritize an approach that addresses the root causes of the crime so we can prevent incidents like this on the front end rather than going backward and using failed carceral solutions.”
Representatives for the ACLU, the California Public Defenders Association and the Vera Institute said they continued to oppose the measure despite the amendments, which Schultz said he proposed to Patterson months ago and which the Republican lawmaker agreed to adopt Monday night in a phone call between the two men ahead of the hearing.
“This is a banner moment for the Legislature because we’re putting aside partisan rhetoric, and I think we are trying to do something meaningful to address the epidemic of violence in our communities,” Schultz said ahead of the vote.
Patterson, who said this is the third time he has tried to increase penalties for domestic violence abusers, was slightly more circumspect than Schultz about the compromise in his comments to a Sacramento Bee reporter after the hearing. But, he said, he ultimately settled on a compromise that would allow him to advance the bill out of the committee.
“We didn’t quite get there,” Patterson said, “but I think in good faith the chairman offered amendments that... doesn’t exactly address my issue, but allows us to continue the conversation, rather than bickering over political points. Because I could have presented the bill as is, and it could have died, and I could have said, ‘Hey, Democrats killed this.’ ”
On criminal justice issues, lawmakers are operating in the wake of Proposition 36, the tough-on-crime ballot measure voters overwhelmingly backed in 2024. That measure undid past efforts to shorten sentences for drug and theft offenders, but did not impact the three-strikes law.
Still, “it clearly sent a signal to this building that voters are concerned about crime,” Patterson told The Bee.
Three-strikes law affects prison sentencing measures
California voters have an evolving history on ballot measures related to prison sentences. Voters adopted the state’s three-strikes law in 1994, and it helped drive prison overcrowding that reform advocates said also kept families separated and led to worse social outcomes for California’s communities.
In 2012, voters softened that law with another ballot measure, also called Proposition 36. That measure ensured that people would not automatically receive a life sentence if their third felony was for a nonviolent crime, and allowed for prior sentences under the three-strike law to be reviewed. The Legislative Analyst’s Office at the time estimated the measure’s passage would eventually save taxpayers as much as $90 million a year in prison costs.
Since then, lawmakers have demurred from adding crimes to the list of violent felonies that invoke the three-strikes law.
“Three Strikes has a very mixed result when you look at whether it actually keeps communities safer and leads to better outcomes,” Schultz told reporters after the hearing, echoing findings from the National Institute of Justice and others. Prosecutors often secure felony domestic violence convictions in the state’s criminal courts in cases where the abuse results in more minor injuries, like scratches or bruising, Schultz, a former deputy attorney general with the California Department of Justice, said.
His committee voted unanimously to advance the bill after amending it to remove the Three Strikes inclusion. It now goes to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
