A convicted rapist in California whose sentencing judge argued he should “never get out of prison” was arrested in the murder of a Sacramento man just weeks after his release, officials said.
Michael Xavier Bell, 36, was arrested this past Sunday for murdering a 60-year-old Sacramento care facility employee just 73 days after he was released early from a decades-long sentence, according to the Association of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys.
Association President Michele Hanisee called his early release “tragically predictable” and said it resulted in “another senseless murder of an innocent victim.”
Bell’s release came amid the state’s effort to rehabilitate juvenile offenders not guilty of homicide back into society under Senate Bill 1391. The legislation passed and was signed into law in 2019 by then-Governor Jerry Brown.
I’m not trying to downplay this, but he was 14 when he committed his1st offense, no one died, and he served 22 years in prison. For a juvenile offender, it seems like a more than fair sentence to me. Many juveniles commit homicide, don’t get charged as an adult—they get released on their 18th birthday. Just because a judge said this man should never get out of prison, doesn’t mean he should never get out. A California judge also said it would not be right to send Brock Turner to prison. So they can’t have it both ways. And of course this is a Fox News article, so it’s not surprising they brought up this case to try and prove the other side is not tough enough on crime.
The only phrase in the article that bothered me was “Bell was released … without having received any type of sex offender treatment or rehabilitation.”
It is absurd to equate what he did at age 15 or as an adult with sex or what the vast majority of persons on the registry did to get there. In both cases, Mr. Bell’s actions were simply violent and sociopathic, not sexual. For Ms. Hanisee to even imply a relationship between such violent acts and sex offenders is a subtle form of misinformation. But I would expect nothing more from a prosecutor.
This case has a couple of facets to it:
1) A minor who was charged as an adult. Who says minors aren’t smart enough to make adult decisions? This guy did. Those who truly believe they can’t are ignorant.
2) His history before and during incarceration bore he should not have been released and thus blanket laws like this one applied don’t work where individual assessments should be used.
3) Both 1 & 2 are directly applicable to dealing with PFRs.
Side note – he shouldn’t be lumped in the PFR recidivism stats but possibly will be because of his initial set of charges which got him incarcerated.
Here is what I get from this.
* Violent people are the greatest danger. Doesn’t matter what form the violence takes, the violence is the danger.
* People that remain violent, don’t wait around before they act in new violent ways.
* The State prison system does little to nothing to reduce the risk of violent people being reintroduced back into the community.
22 years of failure to rehabilitate this person only ended because keeping him was deemed cruel and unusual.
No attempt to alter the rehabilitation efforts. Just keep letting them fail!
No attempt to find an alternative to prison that would not be considered cruel and unusual. Just let him go, and kill someone.
It would seem that the State would have preferred to avoid this murder by continuing to subject him to their cruel and unusual failure until the day he dies!
If his crime was as disturbing as the comments by the judge, and lengthy sentence, would suggest, it would indicate he was, at 14, potentially insane, and until the de-institutionalization craze of the 1980s, he would have been put into an institution and remained there, potentially forever. While I have misgivings about mental institutions, I think we were appalling negligent in tearing them down without a practical alternative.
Actually this article makes a lot of sense if one ponders on it a bit. Sure they were giving this man a break but even the state can fail in many ways. You have cruel and unusual punishment. and eventually no monitoring what so ever or is monitoring only for sex offenders that look at nude scenes on this database save all. Seems someone wasn’t monitoring him from his release but who know’s the why of this senseless issue. Course that wouldn’t of stopped him from murder. So the actions of state legislature was wrong and so was the person released.
So both actions were of a negative event. If it happens it happens regardless. I would feel really stupid if I based my guilt or innocent on some lifeless database of man made… made in japan parts…but if its all about the database than the base speaks for itself.
That the two offenses have nothing in common has nothing to do with this. But it sure draws attention on paper when they can include the word ‘rapist’. If he had exposed himself, they would have found a way to inject “convicted sex offender” into the headline.
Proof that the registry cannot prevent future crimes.
He was Placed in the criminal justice system since a juvenile with no special therapy no treatment, told he was never getting out, so he never mentally or physically prepared himself to be re-integrated back into society, So when they threw him out on the streets, he didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know how to survive in the free world, so he resorted back to what he knew best and would get him back in prison where he felt at home, i’m sure he had friends in there probably a girlfriend in there who knows why he chose to go back, either way he was labeled a sex offender so it was only a matter of time before he was returned back to prison anyways.
“In his last years of incarceration, he was charged and convicted of felony vandalism of government property for smashing the windows of the visiting area. He was even written up for the rape of another inmate,”
Written up? Good Lord! It just goes to show that the state doesn’t care what happens to another inmate, because their life ain’t worth squat. And I know some people are commenting that we should be looking at the violence—not the sex offending. He took turns with his friend while raping a woman in her home, and he raped another inmate in prison. I think there is something sexual going on too. That’s probably why that deputy DA guy is saying Bell was released without any sex offender treatment. But to be fair, his latest offense was a homicide, so treatment wouldn’t have done any good.
My biggest concern about this story is that it could be used against us next year when we lobby the California legislature for improvements to the Tiered Registry Law. Reminds me of the Willy Horton case a few decades ago.