Mission Local
by Griffin Jones
May 30, 2024, 11:08 am
The Freedom Project, a first-of-its-kind program, has helped 88 people, with 500 still waiting
Left to right: Tammy Garvin, Belinda Anderson and Jamesetta Guy at Tuesday's Freedom Project luncheon. All were housed at Chowchilla for several decades.
On Tuesday afternoon, in a bright restaurant facing Aquatic Cove, a group of women in their 60s listened to each other, engrossed.
“I was afraid to start a stove — I hadn’t done it in so long,” said Sally Johnson. “I thought I was gonna blow the house up!”
“I hadn’t walked up stairs in 32 years,” said Belinda Anderson, nodding so her long, purple braids shook. “When I started walking up them, I thought, ‘Oh, Lord, I’m out of breath!’” They laughed.
For 32 years, Anderson, a Bayview native, was serving a life sentence without parole in Chowchilla, a women’s prison in the Central Valley that is entirely ground-level. Johnson, a transgender woman, got out of prison this past November after serving almost 40 years. The two were at a luncheon with around 25 other San Franciscans who had committed crimes in their youth and went on to serve decades behind bars.
Both were released in 2022, thanks to the Freedom Project, a program established in 2020 by the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office that reexamines the cases of prisoners booked in the county. If certain criteria are met, attorneys will recommend a reduction in someone’s sentence, returning the case to the courts.
As of today, 88 people have been able to return home since the Freedom Project launched. There are around 500 people to go, said Danielle Harris, the project’s managing attorney.
But now, their futures are in limbo: For the second year in a row, Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget axes the Public Defense Pilot Program, the three-year state grant funding the Freedom Project.
Counties around the state welcomed this grant as a godsend. Notably, it’s the first of its kind for the state’s public defenders, many of whom have far lower budgets than their counterparts in the district attorney’s office.
Statewide, the Freedom Project is a slim .014 percent of the state’s budget, which is one reason Harris and her team are holding out hope that a last-minute outpouring of support could protect the Public Defense Pilot Program before the June 15 deadline.
This morning, California’s legislature returned their budget revision to the governor, which includes preserving, at least in part, some of the program’s funding. Newsom will now review it and either accept or reject their changes June 15.