This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
Susan Bustamante isn’t giving up.
The formerly incarcerated 71-year-old woman has repeatedly made the long trip from Orange County to Sacramento to urge lawmakers to pass legislation she believes would help her fellow domestic abuse victims facing criminal charges.
Each time, lawmakers seemed supportive — and then killed her bill in secret.
She hopes the fourth year in a row will be different.
Bustamante is again pushing for a measure, which police and prosecutors oppose, that would allow survivors of human trafficking and intimate partner or sexual violence to cite their abuse as a legal defense when facing charges for violent crimes, with the exception of most murder cases.
Those already convicted could also petition a judge to vacate their convictions. If the judge approves, their arrests and convictions would be treated as though they never happened. Their case files would be sealed and destroyed. Any fines and unpaid restitution to victims would be waived.
“I’m willing to fight for those who are not in the position that I am right now to be able to open my mouth and … fight for this,” she told CalMatters in an interview on Friday.
In 1987, Bustamante was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors alleged she hired her brother to kill her husband, Steven Bustamante, and helped dispose of his body for a $100,000 life insurance payout she split with her sibling.
Bustamante said she wasn’t allowed to tell jurors in her two-day trial about how her husband beat her and repeatedly threatened to kill her. She said she only asked her brother for help.
“The idea that he would kill Steven never occurred to me,” she told lawmakers last month. “Later, he called me to say that Steven was dead. He threatened to call the police and say I planned it. He blackmailed me for Steven’s insurance. I was afraid of having my daughters taken from me, so I gave in.”
Former California Gov. Jerry Brown commuted Bustamante’s sentence in 2017 after learning her story and reviewing her spotless prison record. Bustamante was freed the next year after three decades behind bars.
Bustamante said she would not qualify to have her case vacated under the measure.
California law already allows defendants to cite abuse they experienced and call in expert witnesses who can explain how their suffering affected their behavior. Judges also can factor in a defendant’s history with human trafficking and domestic violence during sentencing. This bill takes it further by allowing them to cite their abuse as a legal defense when charged with a violent crime.
California law also allows those charged with or convicted of nonviolent offenses to petition courts for similar legal relief.
Appropriations committees kill bills
In the years since her release, Bustamante got involved with nonprofits that help people such as her navigate their past abuse and incarceration as they seek to reintegrate into life outside of prison.
Bustamante first testified before the Legislature about the need for the bill in 2023.
Since then, each year at least one of the Legislature’s two public safety committees approved similar legislation before an appropriations committee killed it.
Twice a year, the Legislature’s two appropriations committees meet to quickly and with no debate kill hundreds of bills.
As CalMatters has reported, powerful special interest groups, the governor’s office and state agencies secretly lobby the committees to kill bills. Legislative leaders also use the committees to kill politically touchy measures that lawmakers prefer not to go on record voting against in public hearings.
The Senate Appropriations Committee is expected to hear Oakland Democratic Assemblymember Mia Bonta’s abuse bill next month.
Riverside Democratic Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, the new chairperson of the Senate Appropriations Committee, declined to comment through a spokesperson.
Why DAs and police oppose
Law enforcement officials fear Bonta’s Assembly Bill 910 would allow violent criminals, including rapists, kidnappers and child molesters, to burden California’s backlogged judiciary system with a rash of petitions to vacate their convictions.
They say it’s an especially troubling example of how progressive Democrats keep trying to water down penalties for dangerous criminals, with little thought to their victims.
“To basically allow them to walk away from a violent crime in terms of accountability is just absurd policy,” said Greg Totten, a former Ventura County district attorney who heads the state’s DA association.
Totten noted that defendants already have the right to argue they were abused or trafficked during sentencing hearings.
Bonta didn’t return an interview request, but she told the Senate Public Safety Committee last month that “AB 910 is a second chance bill, a dignity bill.”
“Survivors should not spend their lives paying for abuse they endured,” she said.
At least 17 organizations, including ACLU California Action and the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, support the bill, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database.
Supporters argue hardly anyone convicted of violent crimes actually would qualify under the proposed new law.
For the few who do, advocates say it would be much cheaper to allow abuse victims to reintegrate into society without their felony convictions being used against them as they look for jobs, housing and other support.
“If even one person is granted relief under this bill, it will pay for itself,” said Leigh LaChapelle, director of policy and advocacy at the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking.
