Who Is Brandon Hein?

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Almost ten years ago Brandon Hein was convicted under California's felony murder rule when another boy stabbed and killed the son of an LAPD officer in a backyard brawl. Brandon was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Brandon didn't have a knife, didn't know anybody had a knife, and didn't stab anybody. The boy who did the stabbing assumed full responsibility for his crime, yet Brandon Hein is serving a life sentence in a California maximum-security prison for first-degree murder, yet he murdered no one.

Proportional sentencing and individual accountability as opposed to guilt by association are hallmarks of our judicial system. It is ironic that the United States can urge human rights and justice in other countries, while ignoring our own "dirty little secret" of injustice and violation of human rights in California.

Friends of Brandon Hein have constructed an excellent web site (www.brandonhein.com) that details the entire history of this case and what criminologists, legal experts, and people with common sense think about it and its implications for all of us.

I encourage you to examine this case and assess for yourself if Brandon Hein deserves to spend the rest of his life in prisonor should you cry out in rage to demand that he be set free right now.