Professor Feeney Comments on Sentence Commutation for Bee

Professor Floyd Feeney commented for a Sacramento Bee report on the controversy surrounding former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's commutation of the prison sentence of Esteban Núñez, the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez.  Schwarzenegger reduced Núñez's sentence in connection with a fight in which a man was killed from 16 years to seven, prompting protests from the deceased's family, who were not informed in advance. 

Professor Feeney explained that state laws requiring notification of the victim's family before sentencing and parole hearings were probably not applicable.  "Nothing in there that would suggest it would apply to commutations or pardons," Feeney said.

Floyd Feeney is the Homer G. and Ann Berryhill Angelo Professor of Law at the UC Davis School of Law and the winner of the Law School's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1986 and 2008.  The author of seven books and numerous articles, Feeney has received awards from the National Institute of Justice and the California Probation, Parole, and Correctional Association, and is a nationally recognized scholar on election law.

Sacramento Bee article

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