Some unexpected news this holiday weekend: California Governor Gavin Newsom has commuted the murder case against former Bakersfield high school principal Patrick Dunn.
I investigated Dunn’s conviction and the many cases of prosecutorial misconduct in Kern County for my book, Mean Justice, published in 1999. Two years ago, the governor’s office contacted me about Mean Justice and the questions it raised about Dunn’s conviction.
Late Friday I heard back that Dunn’s life-without-parole sentence has been commuted. That means he is immediately eligible for parole after more than 30 years in Corcoran State Prison and most recently, the Donovan correctional center in San Diego. He’s 87. Here’s more about Mean Justice.
The same staff attorney for the governor who reviewed Dunn’s case also was involved in commuting the murder case against JoAnn Parks, the subject of my 2019 book Burned. Parks was freed in 2021.
