SAN LEANDRO — The Alameda County District Lawyer’s Workplace must wait till later this yr earlier than doubtlessly arguing for the early launch of a person convicted within the 2012 deadly capturing of a 15-year-old lady.
The delay got here after a ruling Thursday by Alameda County Superior Court docket Decide Scott Jackson in regards to the case of convicted assassin Lilron Jones. Jones was initially sentenced to 114 years within the December 2012 loss of life of Jubrille Jordan, 15. However a number of components – together with a change in California regulation, an appellate court docket order and the election of recent District Lawyer Pamela Worth in November – have since raised the specter of Jones’ potential early launch.
Such a transfer would fall according to Worth’s efforts at reforming the county’s prison justice system, which embody limiting jail sentences and combatting mass incarceration. These efforts have run towards opposition from a number of murder victims’ households, together with relations of Jubrille, who say the brand new DA has been too lenient on crime.
A lot of the authorized maneuvering in Jones’ case facilities on whether or not he ought to have been charged as an grownup when he was initially prosecuted in Jordan’s loss of life.
Jones was 17 when prosecutors say he fired a gun in the course of the encounter that left Jordan lifeless. The teenage lady was on her manner to buy New 12 months’s Eve outfits together with her sister and greatest associates when she was caught within the crossfire of an East Oakland gang battle.
A jury later convicted Jones, together with two others, of first-degree homicide within the killing. The opposite two defendants, Vijay Bhushan and Marquise Thompson, have been sentenced to 34 years to life and 32 years to life, respectively.
Jones’ case took a flip with the 2016 passage of Proposition 57, which modified the method underneath which juveniles could possibly be charged as adults. Consequently, an appellate court docket later ordered Jones’ case again to juvenile court docket for the needs of conducting a switch listening to – a particular court docket continuing to find out whether or not defendants are tried as adults or stored in juvenile court docket.
Earlier this yr, Worth’s administration had requested that no such switch listening to be held. The request doubtless would have allowed Jones, now 27, to stay in juvenile court docket and forgo the overwhelming majority of his sentence, as a result of juvenile jail sentences usually finish when defendants flip 25.
At Thursday’s listening to, prosecutor Jacq Wilson reiterated his want for Jones to not endure a switch listening to. However — in a definite change in authorized technique — Wilson additionally acknowledged in court docket that the choose’s palms have been tied, as a result of the appellate court docket’s ruling required a switch listening to to be held.
Decide Jackson himself later urged he had no selection – including that the appellate court docket “unequivocally said” that such a listening to wanted to be held.
The choose’s ruling got here regardless of the misgivings of Jones’ lawyer, Greg Ward. He argued that the choose had no authority to order a switch listening to if prosecutors hadn’t requested for one.
“I don’t suppose for one second the District Court docket of Appeals intends to say we’re going to take over for the district lawyer and we’ll decide for them,” Ward stated on the listening to.