California's governors don't often grant clemency or parole to deserving prisoners because there is little upside - but much political risk - in doing so. If all goes well, the governor has done a small good deed that few people will notice. If anything goes badly and the released prisoner returns to crime, the decision becomes a political albatross that can ruin a politician's career.

So we understand why so many governors have offered so little mercy to those who have made mistakes in their earlier lives. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued just seven clemencies and affirmed four parole board release decisions. But the current governor looks like a paragon of mercy compared with his predecessor, Gray Davis.

So when we say that Sara Kruzan, who was sentenced to life without parole at the age of 16, is up against long odds with her clemency petition, we mean that Kruzan's odds are very long indeed. Still, we urge Schwarzenegger to grant her petition. He won't find a more compelling case before he leaves office.

Kruzan's industriousness as a youth - she was on the honor roll and the student body president - couldn't erase the effects of a long history of abuse and neglect. Her mother, who was addicted to drugs, physically abused her. She was molested and gang-raped by men from her neighborhood as a child. And the 36-year-old man she shot and killed just two months after she turned 16 was her pimp.

The man had first sexually assaulted her when she was 11. He put her to work for him on the streets when she was 13. In a 2007 interview, Kruzan described a horrific existence of abuse at the hands of this pimp, who forced her to walk the streets from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and didn't hesitate to beat her.

Anyone with such a terrible background could be forgiven for a lifetime of bitterness and anger. Kruzan could perhaps be forgiven for a bit more.

The California Youth Authority evaluated her at the time of her sentencing and determined that she could be rehabilitated in the juvenile system, which would have resulted in her release at the age of 25. But a judge decided that she should spend the rest of her life in prison, without the possibility of parole.

Now Kruzan is 32 and has already spent half of her life behind bars. She has been a model prisoner. She'll receive her college degree this fall, and was named by correctional officers as a Woman of the Year in 2009.

Kruzan is aware of the grievousness of her crime. In her clemency statement, she wrote, "the remorse I feel will never go away, nor do I wish it to. I feel a deep set sorrow for taking (his) life. It is daily that I experience a level of grief and sadness in my heart and in my thoughts." She added that she hopes to "make the most" of an opportunity to rejoin society. She has done intensive therapy and participated in self-help groups in order to move past feelings of pain and helplessness and understand how she might "lead a life of example for others."

We urge the governor to consider Kruzan's story as well as her young age when she committed this murder.

This page has commented before on the inhumanity of allowing children to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and Kruzan's case underscores that argument.

We know much more now than we did when she was sentenced about the developing teenage brain and the possibilities for young people to change as they grow older. What we have learned in lab rooms must be reflected in courtrooms. And when it isn't - as it wasn't in Kruzan's case - then the governor has an obligation to step in and right this wrong.

The governor's office told us that it has received Kruzan's petition and is reviewing it. But the upshot of the case is clear: Kruzan deserved punishment for her actions, and she received it.

But life in prison without parole is too harsh a punishment in view of the extenuating circumstances in this case. In his final days as governor, Schwarzenegger should do the right thing and offer Kruzan a chance to become a productive member of society.

Source: SFGate