Parole hearings are thorough and can be traumatic, said Milena Blake, an attorney for the Three Strikes Project at Stanford Law School. Judgments are inconsistent and can depend on a person’s public speaking skills instead of their rehabilitation or innocence, or a commissioner’s own biases, she said.

While Blake praised Newsom for some of his progressive criminal justice policies, she said it is “certainly well within his authority” to commute sentences without involving the parole board, calling his approach “politically convenient.”

Blake represented Reese during her suitability hearing and said she was “flabbergasted” by the parole board’s focus on what she viewed as mild infractions in prison and crimes she committed as a teenager.

“Many people have gone into those rooms and have been required to think about the worst things they’ve ever done and ever had done to them in order to get a chance at freedom,” Blake said. “Do I wish there would be more outright releases? Yes. All we can do is keep pushing to get the people who really would be completely safe to release, and would actually be an asset to their communities, more opportunities to do that.”