Courts

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen is moving to eliminate the county’s death row, looking to sentence the 15 local men still sitting on it to serve life in prison without the chance of parole instead, according to an April 5 press release. 

“Judges and juries of the People should decide where an inmate dies,” Rosen said in the press release. “God should decide when.”

California has the highest death row population in the western hemisphere, holding more than 650 people sentenced to death.  

District Attorney Jeff Rosen

“It’s an antiquated, racially biased, error-prone system that deters nothing and costs us millions of public dollars and our integrity as a community that cherishes justice,” Rozen said.  

Black Californians make up 35.58% of California’s death row, but only about 5% of the state’s population.  

“I applaud the courage and the commitment to equality and justice that motivated this decision,” public interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson said in the press release. “We can create a safer, healthier and more just society without the death penalty and the history of racial bias and bigotry it carries.”

The average age of the 15 men subject to this change is 63. Although most of the county’s death row inmates were sentenced between 1980 and 1997, two men, Rodrigo Paniagua Jr., 47, and Melvin Forte, 73, were sentenced in 2010 and 2011, respectively.  

Some local religious leaders are applauding the change. 

“This decision is a significant step forward in respecting the sanctity of all human life…,” San Jose Catholic Bishop Oscar Cantú said. “It is a call to move away from punitive justice towards restorative justice that heals and rebuilds lives.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a moratorium on execution in California in March of 2019, and the state is working to move inmates out of San Quentin’s death row and into other facilities.  

“The question is not whether these 15 human beings deserve the death penalty,” Rosen said. “It’s whether the two million people of Santa Clara County deserve the indignity and ineffectiveness of the death penalty.”

Copyright © 2024 Bay City News, Inc.  

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30 COMMENTS

  1. I can tell you that Jeff Rosen doesn’t care about human life. He allows a deranged attorney to sex traffic my kids and physically assault me.

    I think that he is just trying to cultivate an image that he is caring, empathetic and compassionate by seeking to resentence death row inmates. If he really cared about other people, wouldn’t he send someone to protect my kids? Wouldn’t he stop a crazy lawyer from terrorizing the community?

    Instead he filed charges against ME. The intent was to quickly bring the matter to competency proceedings and discredit my claims that my kids are being sexually abused. I don’t understand why people are still voting for him.

    Please read more here:

    https://www.thepetitionsite.com/272/404/301/district-attorney-jeffrey-rosen-please-stop-sex-trafficking-my-kids/

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  2. My former attorney, Valerie Houghton, openly opines that there is nothing wrong with pedophilia. She is that it part of “gender identity” She also says that a “politician” claims that it is “not a crime”

    Who is that politician that Ms. Houghton is referring to?

    Please see images of her social media posts in the comments section of this page.

    https://frankreport.com/2024/05/07/designer-child-trafficking-why-are-the-family-courts-immune/

    This is totally crazy that Mr. Rosen would support a person who has such positive views on pedophilia. He should not be allowed to remain as the top law enforcement officer in this county. Public safety will just continue to deteriorate with him in office.

    We need someone who doesn’t prioritize money and politics over alleviating suffering in the community.

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  3. D.A. Rosen will never put Valerie Houghton in a prison.

    He is going to continue to allow her to physically assault parents and sex traffic children. Ms. Houghton has already forced countless children to be sexually abused. My youngest was just two years old when he first showed signs of being abused.

    How many other Houghton’s, Cosby’s, Epstein’s, and Sandusky’s are sexually abusing our children because of Rosen?

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  4. All Jeff Rosen would need to do is drop the charges against me. It would remove the incentive to assault me and eliminate the impediment that the county has in conducting a screening for my kids.

    But Jeff Rosen’s sense of entitlement to do whatever he wants to members of the community is too big.

    Your can’t have someone devoid of morality be in charge of public safety. It just doesn’t work.

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  5. He only knows how to manipulate people into thinking that he only has good intentions for the community.

    Rosen does this by saying the things that people want to hear and coming down extra hard on the poor and under represented.

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  6. The reality is that we live in chaos.

    Victims can be charged and some criminals are free to commit heinous crimes.

    And Rosen is so good at fooling the public, that he will continue to get re elected

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  7. NOT EVEN A TWO Year Old BEING RAPED bothers Rosen.

    Not even a father being sadistically assaulted for wanting to protect his kids bothers him.

    Rosen. Is a GHOUL

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  8. It’s all a slight of hand.

    Rosen wants to think that he is some kind of an icon. He takes the the right pics and gets quoted on the right website.

    Then he just harms the community with his degenerate attitudes.

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  9. Rosen doesn’t think that he is being unreasonable to demand that I let my kids be raped.

    He doesn’t think that it’s unfair that Valerie Houghton. Is trying to kill me during the legal process that he has lodged against me.

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  10. He will continue to shove the pedophiles down the our throats.

    There is nothing that anyone can do about it.

    Rosen has all the endorsements and everyone provides him with unconditional support.

    If this happens to you, all the people on power will just gaslight you.

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  11. The same exact thing happened to Violet Brooks and her 3 girls. She begged Rosen to stop the sexual abuse. But since Valerie Houghton was involved, he just ignored the poor mother.

    The young girls had to wait until they turned 18 to take legal action. Even with the sworn affidavit, Rosen let the pedophile off the hook to continue sexually abusing children. This is because money buys immunity in our county. There plenty of money in Santa Clara County. The amount of pedophiles are roaming free has to be staggering.

    Read the court filing from the exploited girls here:

    https://archive.ph/wip/0cLAt

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  12. Jeff Rosen is guilty of violating penal code 236.1

    The key is in subsection 1. You cannot abuse the legal process to sex traffic children.

    (c) A person who causes, induces, or persuades, or attempts to cause, induce, or persuade, a person who is a minor at the time of commission of the offense to engage in a commercial sex act, with the intent to effect or maintain a violation of Section 266, 266h, 266i, 266j, 267, 311.1, 311.2, 311.3, 311.4, 311.5, 311.6, or 518 is guilty of human trafficking.

    (d) In determining whether a minor was caused, induced, or persuaded to engage in a commercial sex act, the totality of the circumstances, including the age of the victim, the victim’s relationship to the trafficker or agents of the trafficker, and any handicap or disability of the victim, shall be considered.

    (h) For purposes of this chapter, the following definitions apply:

    (1) “Coercion” includes a scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process; debt bondage; or providing and facilitating the possession of a controlled substance to a person with the intent to impair the person’s judgment.

    (3) “Deprivation or violation of the personal liberty of another” includes substantial and sustained restriction of another’s liberty accomplished through force, fear, fraud, deceit, coercion, violence, duress, menace, or threat of unlawful injury to the victim or to another person, under circumstances where the person receiving or apprehending the threat reasonably believes that it is likely that the person making the threat would carry it out.

    (4) “Duress” includes a direct or implied threat of force, violence, danger, hardship, or retribution sufficient to cause a reasonable person to acquiesce in or perform an act which the person would otherwise not have submitted to or performed; a direct or implied threat to destroy, conceal, remove, confiscate, or possess an actual or purported passport or immigration document of the victim; or knowingly destroying, concealing, removing, confiscating, or possessing an actual or purported passport or immigration document of the victim.

    (8) “Serious harm” includes any harm, whether physical or nonphysical, including psychological, financial, or reputational harm, that is sufficiently serious, under all the surrounding circumstances, to compel a reasonable person of the same background and in the same circumstances to perform or to continue performing labor, services, or commercial sexual acts in order to avoid incurring that harm.

    https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/penal-code/pen-sect-236-1/

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  13. District Attorney Jeff Rosen is feeding his own family from my demise and that of my children. He is supposed to get paid ONLY for protecting the community. Once you benefit from a certain source, it is difficult to backtrack. Case in point, Mr. Rosen has done this also to Violet Brooks and Daya Baran.

    In the Brooks case, the mother begged and begged Mr. Rosen to protect her three young girls. All he did was callously ignore her.

    Daya Baran found out that his father in law was molesting his toddler daughter. He was then POISONED and prosecuted. freearianna.org

    There has to be many more victims who are afraid to speak out in fear of further retaliation. It is only a matter of time before Jeff Rosen targets his next victim.

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  14. What kind of a district attorney allows for someone to physically assault a parent who just wants to protect his kids? What kind of a district attorney does while he is prosecuting the parent?

    Rosen is turning this county into the County of Sodom and Gomorrah, where anything goes. There is no more rule of law here.

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  15. I understand that the children in question are not Jeff Rosen’s. But he gets paid to care about other people’s children. It is the whole purpose of his job to care about the suffering of others.

    Jeff Rosen just doesn’t care about other people, and you can’t teach empathy.

    All we are paying him for is the image that he is trying to project. He wants us to believe that he is the savior of the community and is upright and responsible. It is all a bunch of phony propaganda that he has got the community to fall for.

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  16. I know Jeff Rosen is the District Attorney, but he is also a terrible human being to force my children to be sexually abused. There is no place in the D.A.’s for a person like that.

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  17. When it comes to children being sexually molested, Jeff Rosen plays the role of a dominatrix. He allows for the assaults of anyone who opposes the abuse of the children. All the while, allowing Valerie Houghton to assert dominance over the protective parent and children.

    Ms. Houghton said to me, “My kids, my rules.” and “I can do whatever I want, whenever I want.”

    Mr. Rosen also uses the county jail to punish parents who fight to protect their kids. I have already spent 5 days in jail. I didn’t even commit a crime, nor do I have a criminal record.

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  18. It’s all about devaluing people. You’re life doesn’t matter to Mr. Rosen. He will give special permission to his friends to have you killed. Even your kids are devalued and turned into prostitutes.

    Keep voting for Rosen. See how he continues to plunge the community into chaos and misery.

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  19. I don’t understand why Jeff Rosen allows such a sadistic criminal to roam free. How could he not care about Valerie Houghton’s physical and sexual violence?

    It’s not like I am Ms. Houghton’s first victim, nor am I the first to complain about her. He should have put an end to her reign of terror a long time ago.

    Now she has expanded her operations to include Texas.

    https://www.valeriehoughtonmft.com/

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  20. Valerie Houghton should be considered a sex offender. Had she been prosecuted and convicted of her sex trafficking offenses, there would have likely been a sentence to include registration.

    Instead, Mr. Rosen allows her continue damaging the children of Santa Clara County. Just ask Violet Brooks what Ms. Houghton has done to her 3 young girls.

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  21. A Marriage and family therapist should not be acting out her sexual fantasies with her client’s children. But that is precisely what Valerie Houghton did to my kids.

    Houghton said that my daughter would “have fun” with the rapist that was forced to live with. Ms. Houghton also says that “it’s not rape if they want it.” This was in reference to my 13 year old being sexually abused.

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  22. Ms. Houghton, besides being a therapist and lawyer, also runs a transgender clinic. That’s perfectly acceptable. The issue is that Ms. Houghton says that “pedophilia is part of gender identity.”

    She apparently believes that if a transgender person is also pedophile, then it is okay. It is not okay to justify her pedophilia in such a manner.

    I hope that Houghton can change her attitude.
    ….
    https://apps.calbar.ca.gov/attorney/Licensee/Detail/144148

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  23. Ms. Houghton, besides being a therapist and lawyer, also runs a transgender clinic. That’s perfectly acceptable. The issue is that Ms. Houghton says that “pedophilia is part of gender identity.”

    She apparently believes that if a transgender person is also pedophile, then it is okay. It is not okay to justify her pedophilia in such a manner.

    I hope that Houghton can change her attitude.
    ….
    https://apps.calbar.ca.gov/attorney/Licensee/Detail/144148

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