State Senate fails to act on law named after Clovis man. Now Californians remain at risk
The one time Sacramento Democrats should have passed a law, they just could not bring themselves to do it.
Maybe that is because Assembly Bill 195 was written by a Republican, Jim Patterson of Fresno. Maybe it was because the law-and-order measure makes complete sense to anyone not inside the current criminal-reform bubble encapsulating the state Capitol.
Whatever the reason, Californians remain at greater risk of being hurt or killed by impaired drivers who leave the scene of their crime. And a young family in Clovis has to endure not only the loss of their husband and father, but the bitterness of a political fight that should have been easy to win.
The background
Patterson was the lead author on what became known as Gavin’s Law, the measure written to honor Gavin Gladding, a widely admired Clovis Unified administrator. He went for a jog early in the morning of Sept. 16, 2018. While running along a stretch of Friant Road, he was struck from behind by a pickup.
The driver fled the scene, and Gladding died of his injuries after being rushed by ambulance to Community Regional Medical Center.
Before turning himself in to police five days later, 18-year-old Rogelio Alvarez Maravilla replaced a broken windshield and side mirror and deleted potentially incriminating text messages, according to court documents.
The unlicensed Alvarez Maravilla received a three-year sentence — one shy of the maximum penalty for hit-and-run fatalities under California law — but only served 12 months. He is already a free man.
If Alvarez Maravilla had remained at the scene, as the law calls for, he could have been sentenced up to a 15-year term in prison for felony DUI. But because he fled, then later turned himself in, he wound up with the far shorter term.
Stronger sentencing
Patterson honed in on that disparity, and set out to make things a bit more right for the Gladding family, and countless others like them in California whose loved ones get killed or injured by DUI drivers in hit-and-run incidents.
His bill would have stiffened the penalties for those involved in hit-and-runs. Prison terms would have gone from two, three, or four years now, to a maximum punishment of three, four, or six years in state prison.
About 10,000 people lent their names in support of the bill, Patterson told the Senate Public Safety Committee. Joining on as co-authors in the Assembly were Valley legislators Joaquin Arambula and Adam Gray, both Democrats, and Republicans Frank Bigelow and Devon Mathis. In the Senate, Fresno Republican Andreas Borgeas was a co-author.
Supporters also included Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims and the Deputy Sheriff’s Association, the local District Attorney’s Office, Fresno Police Department and police officers association, the union for CHP officers and Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
In their letter of support to the Senate committee, the highway patrolmen said 42 percent of the fatal collisions in Fresno in the last three months “involved a driver who left the scene.”
“If Gavin’s Law is signed into law, the whole discussion changes,” Patterson told the committee. “There is in fact a rebalancing, if you will, of the sentencing. There is a disparity here that rewards fleeing (from a crash) and does not reward staying.”
The politics
Opposing the measure were influential liberal entities — the ACLU, California Attorneys for Criminal Justice and the public defender’s office in San Francisco.
Among the reasons: They said the bill would not be an effective deterrent; it would unnecessarily crowd state prisons; and people leave accident scenes not to avoid liability, but over fears of losing jobs, being deported or not having insurance.
Patterson knew going in the Senate Public Safety Committee would present a challenge. It has five Democrats and two Republicans. And it is not known as a group that extends criminal penalties.
That said, Patterson got a surprise when Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, a Democrat from Santa Barbara, said she recognized the disparity in the laws and the need to toughen up the sentencing. She joined the two Republicans voting for the measure.
But a Democrat from San Francisco voted against it, and three other Democrats, including committee chairwoman Nancy Skinner from Berkeley, did not vote. Because the measure did not get a majority, it died in committee.
Prior to the vote, Skinner acknowledged the disparity. But she did not think Patterson’s bill would fix the problem.
Work remains
For now, Patterson isn’t sure if he will introduce the bill again next year. He invested untold hours working to convince Assembly colleagues to back it, and they did, unanimously.
Gavin Gladding’s widow Susan made five trips to Sacramento to testify or watch proceedings in support of the bill. Now she is left to parent their two children. Is she up for yet another crusade?
What should not be hard is for California’s Senate to approve a bill that fixes an glaring problem in sentencing laws. One Democrat on the key committee figured it out. Looks like she will need to help her colleagues see the obvious should Patterson try again.
This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 11:02 AM.