Recall supporters will blast Newsom for Fresno killer’s new parole. But that is wrong

Gov. Gavin Newsom has declined to block the parole of convicted killer David Weidert of Fresno. In so doing, the governor just gave his opponents more ammunition in the campaign to recall him.

Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, a Republican now running to replace Newsom, wasted no time reacting to the news by issuing this statement early Tuesday: “Convicted killers belong in prison, not on our streets. No one who buries a person alive should be allowed to go free. Gavin Newsom let this happen. Once again, he has sided with criminals instead of victims.”

That is a good political sound bite. But, as often happens, reality is not so simple.

First, Weidert was sentenced to 25 years to life with the possibility of parole. He received neither a death sentence nor life imprisonment. Parole was always possible. In his case, to not offer parole would actually violate the law.

Second, Weidert has been judged a low risk to society in evaluations done by forensic psychiatrists in 2011, 2016 and 2021. Different doctors evaluated Weidert in those years. The state Board of Parole Hearings and the governor consider these evaluations in their decisions.

Third, Newsom denied Weidert in 2019, when he first heard the inmate’s case, to make the point about the seriousness of the crime he committed, said Charles Carbone, Weidert’s attorney. This year, the governor swung back to applying the law.

“Everyone will forever hate and despise what Mr. Weidert did, including Mr. Weidert,” said Carbone, a San Francisco lawyer. “But that is not how the law works. This is about the law, not morals.”

As established by court rulings, the state Board of Parole Hearings and governor must make parole decisions on a narrow focus: Does the inmate pose a current unreasonable risk to public safety? The parole board found Weidert did not, and this time Newsom did not disagree.

The California Supreme Court has ordered lower courts to focus on “current dangerousness” of an inmate when hearing parole matters. Furthermore, the state parole board has achieved remarkable success in limiting recidivism of the inmates it recommends for release from prison.

To be certain, Weidert is far from a sympathetic figure.

Weidert was convicted in 1980 for brutally killing Michael Morganti, a developmentally disabled man in Clovis. Morganti witnessed Weidert commit a theft. To cover it up, Weidert, then 18, kidnapped the 20-year-old Morganti and took him to a remote spot outside Fresno. There, he made Morganti dig his own grave. After beating Morganti with a baseball bat and stabbing him, Weidert forced him into the grave and buried him. Morganti pleaded for his life, to no avail.

As a result of his conviction, Weidert has spent 40 years behind bars. Former Gov. Jerry Brown twice denied Weidert his release. Newsom blocked Weidert’s release in 2019. In those instances, The Bee Editorial Board recommended that he be kept in prison.

But the latest psychiatric evaluation determined that Weidert did not pose “current dangerousness” to the public. That evaluation uses a widely accepted methodology.

So this time Newsom accepted the finding of the parole board, “which determined that he (Weidert) does not pose a current unreasonable risk to public safety,” Newsom’s office said Monday, without elaborating.

Just politics?

In a statement, Fresno County District Attorney Lisa A. Smittcamp noted how Weidert forced Morganti to dig his own grave. “It is difficult to comprehend the gravity of the pain and suffering this young man endured before his death. It is pathetic that Gavin Newsom is putting his politics, and quest for personal power, over the desires of this victim’s family.”

She is absolutely right about the pain and suffering.

Over the last decade, however, the courts and the parole board have refined their view of an inmate to put the emphasis on the person who is before them in the present. Past behaviors are not as predictive of future behavior, researchers have found. Nor do statements of remorse necessarily relate directly to risk involved in release, the studies show.

In a review of 8,000 parole grants of inmates with long sentences, like Weidert, the board determined that the general recidivism rate was just 2% to 4%. Recidivism involving felony crimes against persons, such as Weidert’s, was less than 1%.

Recall’s glare

Everything Newsom does these days falls under the glare of the recall election that will occur on Sept. 14. California voters will decide if they want to remove Newsom. If a majority votes yes, he will be out of office. A second vote on the same ballot will choose which candidate will replace him.

The Bee recommends a no vote on the recall primarily because Newsom is up for re-election next year, and that is a better time to decide if he should remain. The key issues that his opponents raise now — such as California’s lack of affordable housing, the widespread problem of homeless people, the impact of undocumented immigrants — should be subject to the campaign process, not a truncated recall effort.

That won’t stop opponents like Faulconer from trying to capitalize on developments like Weidert’s parole.

Smittcamp might be right, from a politics standpoint, that Newsom allowed Weidert’s release to satisfy his liberal supporters, whose votes he needs. And conservatives in the Valley and elsewhere, like Faulconer, will seize on this decision as yet another reason to recall the governor.

But the politics misses the point of the legal limits to what the parole board and Newsom can do, and just becomes more noise in the recall campaign in California.