(Wikimedia Commons)

Sara Kruzan, now 35, was sentenced to life without parole for killing the man she claimed had forced her to work for him as a child prostitute. 

Kruzan has received national media attention after a human rights organization posted an interview with her on YouTube in 2009.

San Francisco Senator Leland Yee (D) expressed outrage over the ruling and has spent a decade championing for Kruzan’s justice. His legislation to allow new sentencing hearings for children who are in jail for life without parole became law this January.  He also signed another bill in September requiring parole boards to give special consideration to convicted juveniles re-tried as adults who have served at least 15 years of long sentences. 

But even before those bills passed, advocates persuaded California’s then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2011 to reduce Kruzan’s sentence to 25 years to life with the possibility of parole. He has said that while he still considers her guilty of first-degree murder, he thought that her sentence was “excessive,” given the abuse she suffered at a young age.

Kruzan is now staying at the Central California Women’s Facility.