By Darrell Smith
The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper announced a new ballot initiative that would revise Proposition 57 to prohibit sexually violent predators from being eligible for early parole.
Saying the state’s independent parole board has “too much unfettered power,” Cooper said the “only way to reform Prop. 57 is to take it back to the voters. That’s why we’re choosing a ballot initiative.”
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Cooper, who was elected to the post in 2022 after eigth years in the Assembly, said he aims to qualify the measure, “Protect Our Kids: Reform Prop. 57,” for the 2028 ballot. He said a committee has been formed, and fundraising will soon begin for the effort.
Prop. 57, approved by voters in 2016, allows early release of nonviolent offenders in part to reduce overcrowding in California prisons.
Proposition 57 “was sold as a second chance for non-violent offenders. The authors of Prop. 57 said it wouldn’t apply to violent offenders,” Cooper said. Instead, he said, “voters were duped. How do we reform this? How do we change the law?”
Cooper’s ballot plan followed public outcry over the early release of convicted sex offender David Allen Funston, who was serving multiple life terms in state prison for the rapes and assaults of eight Sacramento -area children in 1995, before state Board of Parole Hearings found him suitable for elderly parole. In February, Cooper stood in the same spot at Sheriff’s Office headquarters to rail against the parole board’s decision to grant Funston’s release.
Funston was later rearrested and charged by Placer County authorities on the day of his scheduled release in connection with 1996 allegations of lewd acts against a Roseville child. Funston remained in custody in Placer County awaiting an April court date in Placer Superior Court.
Days later, on March 12, Cooper was again at the Old Foothill Farms podium decrying the release of Gregory Lee Vogelsang, a Roseville man convicted of sexually abusing young boys in the late 1990s. The Board of Parole Hearings days later decided it would reconsider Voglesang’s release.
On Wednesday, Cooper was flanked by retired sheriff’s detectives and an FBI agent who worked on long-ago sex crime cases. A video shown before the morning news conference documented their accounts of the criminals the initiative hopes to keep behind bars.
Cooper said the initiative would be narrowly tailored to address early release for sexually violent predators.
“If you’re a sexually violent predator, you’re not eligible for parole. You do your time. That’s how it’s supposed to be,” Cooper said. “This is not a blue or red issue. It’s a righteous issue.”
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