Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) pardoned a California woman who was sentenced to life in prison after killing her pimp at the age of 16.
Sara Kruzan, who had served 18 years in prison, received one of nearly three dozen pardons and clemencies issued by Newsom on Friday.
Kruzan was a teenager in 1994 when she killed George Gilbert Howard in a Riverside, California, motel room. She was sentenced at the age of 17 for the murder of the man she said had abused and trafficked her for sex since she was 13 years old.
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“Ms. Kruzan committed a crime that took the life of a victim,” Newsom said in issuing his pardon. “Since then, Ms. Kruzan has transformed her life and dedicated herself to community service.”
The pardon does not expunge or erase her conviction, but the governor’s office said it “may remove counterproductive barriers to employment and public service, restore civic rights and responsibilities, and prevent unjust collateral consequences of conviction, such as deportation and permanent family separation.”
Kruzan was released from prison on parole in 2013, a few years after then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger commuted her sentence to 25 years to life with the possibility of parole.
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Last year, a bill called Sara’s Law and the Preventing Unfair Sentencing Act of 2021 was introduced in Congress. If signed into law, the legislation would allow federal courts to issue juveniles convicted of violent crimes against abusers a sentence below the mandatory minimum.
