San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
To exchange one injustice for another
Pati Navalta Poblete began the week of the fourth anniversary of her son’s slaying with a combination of exhaustion, dread and hope. Exhaustion from having gone through the postponement of three previously scheduled trials. Dread at the prospect of a monthlong courtroom ordeal that would test “my mental capacity and emotional capacity.” Hope that justice would finally be served on the four men involved in the crime that led to the shooting death of 23-year-old Robby Poblete in Vallejo on Sept. 21, 2014.
Then came the latest cruel twist.
In what she had anticipated as a routine pretrial meeting Monday, Pati learned from the prosecutor that the defendant accused of masterminding the armed robbery might soon go free even if found guilty of first-degree murder. She was incredulous. How can this be?
The prosecutor explained that legislation was sitting on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk (SB1437 by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley) that would significantly narrow California’s “felony murder” law, which allows defendants involved in a crime to be charged with murder if a victim dies during a felony — even if the defendant did not personally inflict the violence himself or herself. SB1437 also allows those convicted of murder under the previous guidelines to petition the court for a reduced sentence, except in cases involving the killing of a police officer.
James Anthony Gover, the man accused of directing three others to ambush Robby on a tip that he was with someone carrying a hefty sum of cash, was not at the scene. Gover was nevertheless charged with first-degree murder. If Brown signs SB1437 into law, Gover could be relieved of any accountability for his culpability in the killing.
“To have the key suspect in my son’s case essentially set free ... is beyond infuriating,” Pati said. “It’s a bill that’s very much designed for the rights of the suspects, with no regard for the rights of the victims or their families.”
First, a bit of background about Pati. She is a former colleague on our editorial page, an elegant writer and a fierce advocate of social justice. She was the lead author of an awardwinning series of Chronicle editorials that were widely credited with helping to compel reforms to the state’s foster care system a decade ago. After Robby’s death, she created a foundation in his name to raise money to take guns off the streets and turn them into art for public display and to sponsor vocational training and job fairs.
“I’ve worked shoulder to shoulder with ex-convicts, and many of them have committed murders,” she said of her efforts with the Robby Poblete Foundation. “I have provided scholarships for many of them to get commercial driving licenses or apprenticeships in the trades so they can have a second chance. These are people who have served their time. They have been held accountable for their crimes, are remorseful for them and are trying to rebuild their lives.”
In other words, Pati never would be mistaken for a throw-away-the-key ideologue about criminal justice.
She is keenly sympathetic to the arguments behind reform of the felony murder law. Some 72 percent of women serving time for first-degree murder were not the perpetrators of the homicide. A recent study showed that the felony murder rule has been applied disproportionately against youth of color. Recognizing such injustices, states such as Hawaii, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio have abolished the felony murder rule. SB1437
author Skinner said current law “irrationally treats someone who did not commit murder the same as someone who did.”
Pati gets all that.
“This is a rule that definitely needs to be revisited,” she said. “But you can’t take a wholesale approach, because if you look at my son’s case, this was not an unwitting girlfriend or wife driving her boyfriend or husband not knowing there’s going to be a murder. This was not someone who was naive that he was engaging in a dangerous felony that could lead to someone’s murder.”
Law enforcement has taken a near-united stand against SB1437. Even prosecutors who are supportive of the need for reform of the felony murder law point to serious flaws in this iteration. One is the issue that comes to the fore in Robby’s death: To get a murder conviction, the prosecution would need to show that a defendant had “the intent to kill” when ordering a crime that turned lethal.
So the ultimate verdict, the one that threatens to supersede anything that happens in the Vallejo courtroom, lies in Jerry Brown’s hands.
Does the governor merely exchange one injustice for another? Does he go for the news release claiming “reform” when the unintended consequences of a flawed bill for a worthy cause are so readily apparent? Or does he veto SB1437, as he should, and ask the Legislature to work with the progressive voices in law enforcement to address its shortcomings?
“Without the suspect, my son would still be here,” Pati said. “To lump someone like that with the people this bill is trying to protect is not right. To rush it through is not right, especially for families like ours that have been waiting years and years for justice.”