CLEMENCY GRANTED IN 2 SAN DIEGO COUNTY CASES

Governor pardons or commutes prison terms for 33 total

Gov. Gavin Newsom granted clemency to 33 individuals Friday, using his executive power to pardon one man and commute the sentence of another who were convicted of crimes in San Diego County.

Newsom granted 17 pardons, 15 commutations and one medical reprieve. Those pardoned included Manuel Vasquez, who was convicted of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon for an Oceanside shooting in which he did not pull the trigger, but did give the shooter a ride.

Newsom commuted the sentence of Eric Cowan, who was sentenced to 140 years to life in prison for his role in a prolific San Diego County robbery spree carried out by a four-man crew in the late 1990s.

“The Governor regards clemency as an important part of the criminal justice system,” his office said in a statement. “(Clemency) can incentivize accountability and rehabilitation, increase public safety by removing counterproductive barriers to successful reentry, correct unjust results in the legal system, and address the health needs of incarcerated people with high medical risks.”

Pardons do not expunge convictions, but restore all civil rights to a person and may be granted after that person has been released from prison and stayed out of trouble.

Commuting a sentence reduces that sentence and allows a Parole Board hearing with a staff recommendation for release.

Among others granted clemency Friday was Sara Kruzan, who received a life sentence when she was a teenager for killing her former pimp, a man she said began abusing her when she was 13 years old. She was 16 when she killed him in a Riverside motel room.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger commuted Kruzan’s sentence to life with the possibility of parole just before he left office in early 2011. Gov. Jerry Brown allowed her release in 2013 after she’d served 18 years in prison.

For each pardon and commutation, Newsom wrote that the clemency “does not minimize or forgive” the conduct or the harm caused, but “does recognize the work” each person has done to “transform” themselves.

Vasquez served five years in prison after being sentenced in November 2008 in connection with the Oceanside shooting, according to the governor’s office. A Union-tribune story from 2008 reported it happened at a coin laundry and left an 18-year-old man with a superficial wound and a 20year-old man with a gunshot to the torso.

According to the governor’s office, Vazquez was not the gunman, but he “picked up his crime partner and drove him from the crime scene after his crime partner shot and injured two victims.”

Newsom’s office said the San Diego Superior Court granted Vazquez a certificate of rehabilitation in June 2020 “on evidence that he has been living an upright life,” and by doing so, the court recommended Vasquez be granted a full pardon. Newsom’s letter called Vasquez’s pardon “full and unconditional.”

Cowan was part of a fourman robbery crew that, according to Union-tribune stories from the time, may have been responsible for 65 restaurant holdups in 1997 and 1998 throughout San Diego County, with a few in Riverside County.

Authorities believed the group may have also robbed more than 80 people carrying deposit bags to the bank.

All told, the armed bandits were believed to have taken more than $200,000.