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Attorneys are seeking shorter prison terms for 18 California inmates, citing “gross racial disparities” in how they were sentenced.

A state law passed in 2020 allows criminal defendants to challenge the length of their prison terms if they can demonstrate relevant racial basis in the jurisdiction where their case was prosecuted.

No California judge has granted a petition under the Racial Justice Act for disparate sentencing since the law was passed, according to Stanford Law and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

When California lawmakers approved the Racial Justice Act in August 2020 — just months after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd — many backers had high hopes it

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