This Monday, Brenda Ross was released from California’s women’s prison in Chowchilla, where 13 years ago she’d been sentenced to spend the rest of her life behind bars by Santa Barbara Judge Brian Hill for trying to stab a pregnant homeless woman in the belly with a knife. Last week, Judge Hill was persuaded that Ross — a three-striker and career criminal for 36 years — had genuinely turned her life around, pursuing a host of rehabilitation classes while incarcerated and becoming a mentor to hundreds of other women serving time.
It was the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation itself that nominated Ross for release as a “meritorious conduct case” as part of a new wrinkle on an old law signed last year by former governor Jerry Brown. Testifying on Ross’s behalf in Hill’s courtroom last week was the former director of adult institutions for that department as well as representatives with Stanford University’s Three Strikes Project and a defense attorney with the Public Defender’s Office.
The only skeptic in the courtroom was prosecuting attorney Kimberly Siegel, who successfully prosecuted Ross in 2008. Siegel submitted a lengthy court brief vigorously arguing that Ross — even at the age of 63 — still poses a serious risk to public safety. According to documents submitted by Siegel, Ross began her criminal career at age 14 and didn’t stop until age 51, when she was arrested for beating and stomping a woman with whom she shared a homeless camp. After the victim told Ross she was pregnant, Ross tried to stab the woman in the gut. Ross was arrested the same day and tried — unsuccessfully — to smuggle the knife, hid in her underwear, into county jail. There she would encounter her victim, who had since been arrested herself. Ross repeatedly asked her victim not to testify against her — a crime in itself — and threatened to label her “a rat” if she didn’t agree.