NORFOLK, Va. — Shawn Weneta faced a 30-year prison sentence for embezzlement and served 16 years in prison before then Gov. Ralph Northam pardoned him in 2020.
"There are hundreds if not thousands of guys that are incarcerated in prisons that are at least as deserving if not more so deserving of the consideration that I got," Weneta told News 3 Friday.
Today, he's a policy strategist with the ACLU of Virginia and is pushing for lawmakers to pass the so-called "second look" bill, where people serving lengthy prison sentences could potentially have their sentences revisited.
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"A sentence that may have been appropriate 20, 25, 30 years ago might not be appropriate anymore," said Weneta. "What this bill really says is that people change and our laws should reflect that."
For the third year in a row, Virginia lawmakers are debating the bill.
This year's version says depending on the crime, a person would have to serve 15, 20 or 25 years in prison before they'd be eligible.
They'd petition the court where they were sentenced and a judge could decide whether to consider modifying their sentence.
The version of the bill in the House of Delegates says victims can choose not to support the petition and the case would be dismissed.
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There is vocal opposition including a man named Michael Grey, whose son Joshua was shot and killed in Richmond in 2018 while selling an i-Phone.
"Why have a justice system if we're going to circumvent these decisions and try and come back and let these people get out of jail?" said Grey in a committee hearing this week.
Attorney General Jason Miyares has come out strongly against the bill.
A spokesperson for Gov. Youngkin said only that he would review all legislation that makes it to his desk.
Weneta is hopeful this year the bill passes.
"There are a lot of people that should get this consideration and there's plenty of people in prison that deserve to be there," he said. "Only the people that clear this really exceedingly high bar are going to be the ones that are actually going to benefit from this."
