SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) – Families of murder victims say they want Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen recalled. They don’t agree with Rosen’s efforts to remove capital prisoners from death row.
The LoBue family is among 15 families who have been forced to relieve their nightmare while Rosen tried to reduce the sentences of convicted murderers.
“It’s truly disappointing that we as victims have to be our advocates against the district attorney who should be doing their job,” said Tony LoBue.
LoBue is spearheading the effort to recall Rosen. His sister was killed nearly 40 years ago.
“Her life was taken on my mom’s birthday in 1987 and she never recovered,” he said.
On Monday, her convicted killer was resentenced from death row to life without the possibility of parole. LoBue says his sister’s murder trial is still fresh on his mind.
“He said it actually felt good to stab my sister 52 times and let her bleed to death. He said it felt good to kill her. He said that in court,” he said.
The Andrade family also wants the DA out of office after a judge reduced the sentence of their mother’s killer in August. Mark Crew was convicted of killing his wife of two months – Nancy Andrade – in 1982.
“DA Rosen took away the one thing that we had, the one bargaining chip we had to find our mother’s body. Crew has never shown any remorse. He’s never told us where her body is,” said Stacey Andrade King, the victim’s daughter.
Rosen – who sought the death penalty in previous few cases as a long-time prosecutor — changed course and launched an effort to rescue the death sentences of 15 murderers to prison terms. He called death row an, “antiquated, racially biased, error-prone system.” He says it also costs the state millions of public dollars.
Dolores Carr is helping victims’ families going through resentencing. She served as Santa Clara County’s DA from 2006 to 2010. She says she would support a recall of Rosen too.
“DA Rosen comes in 2024 and decides he doesn’t like the death penalty anymore and he’s going to go back and redo these cases because of his personal opinion regardless of the victim’s families,” she said.
These families have also been worried about a state senate bill that would have given inmates serving a life sentence to 25 years a chance to petition a judge to release. Even though the bill is now not moving forward, families worry it could be re-introduced down the road.
LoBue plans to start gathering support and fundraising for his recall effort.
