'In Exile'

Humboldt County District Attorney Stacey Eads is asking a superior court judge to resentence Patrick Harvey, reportedly the first local person sentenced under California’s three-strikes law, and order him released from custody.

The recall and resentencing motion is the first filed locally under a prosecutor-led resentencing pilot project initiated in 2021 and argues that resentencing Harvey — who has served more than 26 years of a 25-to-life sentence — is in the interest of justice. The 23-page motion, which was filed with another 230 pages of supplemental documents, argues that changes in the law and Harvey’s record of self-improvement work in prison, coupled with his expressions of remorse and post-release plans, all weigh in favor of the 53 year old being released from state custody for the first time since his arrest for a burglary in 1997.

“Mr. Harvey’s positive transformation, as well as his ability to find meaning and purpose from his current confinement, illustrate just how much circumstances have changed since the time he was sentenced to prison,” the motion reads. “Throughout his time in custody for the current offense, Mr. Harvey has learned valuable life skills, become educated, committed himself to the rigorous self-improvement and has, within the extreme limits of incarcerations, proven he can live a meaningful and productive life. Indeed, Mr. Harvey has even come to view his time in prison as a blessing, rather than a curse, because it saved his life. As he writes, ‘[Before prison], I blamed … anyone or anything but myself. I tricked myself into thinking I was the victim. … If not for prison, I would have never saved my own life. A curse turned into a blessing in many ways.”

Harvey, whose candidacy for resentencing was the focus of the Journal‘s April 18, 2024 cover story “Seeking Salvation,” received his life sentence June 2, 1998, after a jury convicted him of three felonies — first degree burglary, grand theft and possession of a concealable firearm — for the Dec. 2, 1997, residential burglary, in which Harvey was unarmed but stole a pistol from the home.

In a series of previous phone interviews with the Journal from prison in early 2024, Harvey said he went through a period of hopelessness after being sent to prison but had come to focus on “leaving in amends,” helping those around him while trying to become a better person.

“I do that in showing that I owe society something, that I owe society what I took from it,” he said. “In living in amends, you atone for the damage you’ve done. And you do it daily.”

Created in 2019 and funded in 2021, the California County Prosecutor-led Resentencing Pilot Program features nine participating counties — including Humboldt — giving them the authority and resources to review old cases and identify potential candidates for resentencing. The program came amid a flurry of criminal justice reforms aimed at reducing California’s prison population but was unique in that it gave prosecutors the authority to ask courts to resentence inmates and explicitly directed them to consider inmates who had committed crimes against people, not the drug and property offenses that were the focus of other reforms.

To date, the project has resulted in more than 1,100 case reviews throughout the state, with 240 referred to a court for potential resentencing, with 227 of those requests granted, resulting in 174 inmates released from state prison. According to a recent report from RAND Corporation, a nonprofit policy think tank hired to evaluate the program, the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office reviewed four cases prior to Harvey’s but decided not to move forward with them. Currently, Humboldt County is the only of the nine counties participating in the project not to have seen an inmate resentenced and — before Harvey’s motion was filed Jan. 27 — it was the only county not to have yet sought an inmate’s resentencing.

The Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office reportedly began reviewing Harvey’s case in early 2024 after it was brought forward by For the People, a nonprofit organization that has spearheaded the project and has helped guide its implementation.

According to the RAND report, Harvey’s case follows a couple of trends seen statewide. Specifically, the report found that while people incarcerated under California’s three-strikes law make up only 7 percent of the state prison population, they’ve made up 43 percent of cases referred for resentencing. Additionally, the report found that 56 percent of the individuals recommended for resentencing were over the age of 50, like Harvey, and had served enough time to become parole eligible.

The report also found significant variation in how participating district attorney’s offices approached the project, noting that all were allowed to set their own eligibility criteria and some seemed to approach case reviews aggressively, bringing on extra help or partnering with outside organizations for the task, while others did not, resulting in disparate outcomes. For example, according to the report, Merced County reviewed approximately 26 percent of its inmate populations’ cases over the three-year project and Humboldt County reviewed only 1.2 percent of its potential cases while Riverside County’s review rate was the lowest of participating counties, at 0.6 percent.

As such, the report recommends streamlining eligibility criteria and setting case-review targets for future incarnations of the project, while also saying additional training for the staffs of district attorney’s offices and public defender’s offices is needed.

The motion for Harvey’s resentencing is scheduled to be heard March 11 by a Humboldt County Superior Court judge, who will have the authority to accept the motion and recall and resentence Harvey to time served, to reject the motion outright or to resentence Harvey in a way other than Eads has asked. (The RAND report, however, indicates the overwhelming majority of judges have followed prosecutors’ recommendations.)

Eads’ motion, in addition to arguing that Harvey’s criminal behavior was fueled in part by drug addiction and unmitigated childhood trauma that he has worked to address through counseling, self-improvement and substance use programs, asserts that he has put together a strong plan to avoid reoffending if released.

“Mr. Harvey’s robust relapse prevention plans demonstrate he understands his triggers and has developed positive coping mechanisms for stressors and insight into the circumstances of crime, all of which further underscore how circumstances have changed from the time he was sentenced such that his continued incarceration is no longer in furtherance of justice,” Eads’ motion says.

Specifically, the motion says Harvey has developed a “comprehensive wraparound reentry plan” that includes a commitment to enter Delancey Street, a two-year residential treatment program in San Francisco that has already accepted him, saying he even has documented transportation plans to get there immediately following his release. Additionally, the motion notes Harvey has extensive familial support, with numerous pledges to help him in any way possible. If released, Harvey plans to find work as a tattoo artist and painter, the motion says.

“In the long-term, however, Mr. Harvey intends to become a substance abuse counselor and help others who are on the same journey as him,” the motion says.

The report also notes that Harvey agreed to waive enough of his custody credits to allow him to be supervised by state parole services for two years following his release.

Speaking to the Journal in early 2024, Harvey said he felt like he was ready to take the next step in his daily effort to “live in amends,” saying he wanted to be there for his aging parents and to be a positive member of the community. And he said sharing his story with the paper was part of that effort, letting his community see his work and his efforts, and his efforts to address and atone for what he’d done.

“It is my community,” he said. “I’m not separate from my community. I’m part of it, in exile.”

Twenty-six years after it began, Patrick Harvey’s exile may soon come to an end.

Thadeus Greenson (he/him) is the Journal’s news editor. Reach him at (707) 442-1400, extension 321, or thad@northcoastjournal.com.