The California justice system is well known for extensive sentencing, with enhancements like the Three Strikes Law and 10-20-year-to-life gun enhancement, sending people to prison to serve decades on life sentences.
Less known is the so-called “one-year-to-life sentence,” reserved for people who served their time in prison and returned on a parole violation, only to find themselves trapped in what feels like a second life sentence.
San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, where I am incarcerated, has become home to more than 40 “lifer violators,” who keep returning to the parole board on one-year terms and are repeatedly denied.
Demetrius Mitchell is now into a seven-year violation due to a conviction for disturbing the peace; Philip Stamps a 5½-year violation for a misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter initially sentenced to county jail for one year with half-time; Jamie Van Cleave a three-year technical violation with no conviction; Elmer Powell another technical violator without a conviction; and Raul Sanchez with a misdemeanor conviction. Bradley Ware has the only felony conviction for possession of a controlled substance.
What these men share is that they served a life sentence in the California prison system and were found suitable for release by the parole board. They then received parole violations that sent them back to court, and they ultimately accepted a one-year sentence for parole violation under the delegated authority of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Board of Prison Hearing’s control. Never did they expect an aggravated life sentence to be included in the violation term.
While many felt a one-year violation seemed reasonable, they did not imagine serving a complete life sentence once again. Mitchell, Vancleave, Powell, Stamps, and Sanchez have all been denied numerous times by the parole board, year after year, despite their efforts to remain disciplinary-free while incarcerated.
Mitchell served 24 years before being released on life parole in 2016. In 2019, he was arrested and convicted of disturbing the peace. Demetrius could not be released for the misdemeanor county jail offense because the Board of Prison Hearings ordered his return to prison.
Even though he had no new felony criminal conviction and had not violated parole according to his parole agent, the board aggravated his life term. Demetrius to date has served seven years of a one-year-to-life term, regardless of fulfilling the board’s self-help program plans in order to be suitable for release. “The board has not stated he poses a risk to public safety, they are just not satisfied with seven-year violation,” he tells me. Although Demetrius goes to board every year in November, the years are steadily piling up on his original base term of 24 years served once again.
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Bradley Ware served 29 years before being released in July of 2019. He returned to prison as a lifer parole violator November 6, 2020, for possession of a controlled substance—generally a misdemeanor but in his case turned into a felony. The board ordered him to complete eight domestic violence self-help programs. As of to date, Bradley has completed eight domestic violence programs during his four-year violation.
The board imposed a one-year-to-life term, setting his board hearings every year in December, with the same statements made by commissioners to remain disciplinary free and to earn positive Chronos from staff, which are positive letters of support or laudatory comments for attending rehabilitative programming.
“The board refuses to set a maximum violation base term consistent with the legislation adopted for all parolees,” he says. He questions how the law does not apply to him.
Jamie VanCleave served 26 years before being released on November 21, 2019. Jamie returned to CDCR’s custody for possession/access to a simulated firearm—what he says was a pellet gun. Although the court dismissed the charges, the parole board exercised its jurisdiction forcing the state court and parole agent to return Jamie back to CDCR’s custody for a technical violation with no criminal conviction term.
Jamie has been back in CDCR’s custody for three years and now is serving a one-year-to-life term. Just this past January at his one-year hearing, he was told by the board “… they could not find him suitable due to the recency of the violation.” The commissioners said they would like him to earn positive Chronos from staff before his next board hearing and to remain disciplinary free until January 2026.
Phillip Stamps served 28 years before being paroled in 2018. Phillip returned to prison in 2020 on a violation for misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter, which was ruled an accident. Phillip fell asleep while driving home from work and was hit by someone under the influence of a controlled substance.
His court issued one year of county jail with half-time, meaning Phillip would have only served six months before being released from county jail. Although Phillip was released from the hospital soon after the accident and accepted a one-year county jail plan agreement, once the board got wind of the car accident they ordered his return back to prison a month later.
Since being violated he has served 5 1/2 years of his now one-year-to-life term despite meeting program incentives, being disciplinary free, and earning positive Chronos from staff. It seems the board is focused more so on his past crime, because every year he goes to board his original conviction is the main focus and the victim’s family members are called to oppose his release.
Phillip will be returning before the commissioners in his sixth year of incarceration in September 2025. He’s not too optimistic about being released, though. Phillip says: “I have met every board requirement but still I’m being denied continuation on life-search because of my
past crime,” like so many other life violators.
Phillip was told that the new parole supervision laws do not apply to him, so he must wait until the board commissioners feel he has served enough time as a violator. “The whole time I was in the courts for my violation my parole agent kept telling me and my family I had nothing to worry about because I was not going back to prison because my parole charges were being dropped,” he says.
In 2020, Senate Bill 118 passed with a provision that changed Penal Code 3000.1 to Penal Code 3000.01. What it was meant to clarify is that there is no longer “life parole.” When a violation occurs for someone released by the board, the individual cannot be returned to the board; the violation is to be served in the county jail.
Attorney General Rob Bonta argues that any inmate paroled prior to 2020 does not benefit from the new legislation. However, since 2024 a state Appeals Court has ruled in P. V. Reed (Cal.App.5th 611(3), 16. A168955) that the board does not have delegated jurisdiction over lifer parole violators who violate parole after 2020 under the old law.
Though the Appeals Court has ruled in favor of some “lifer violators,” many others struggle to find their voices being heard in the same judicial system. So for now, the members of the Board of Prison Hearings will keep its jurisdiction to impose one-year-to-life terms however they see fit, in the interests of justice being unserved.
