SAN JOSE — A man convicted as a teen nearly a decade ago in a San Jose “thrill kill” murder case was freed this week, reviving wounds for the victim’s family and a contentious split over the juvenile justice reform law that paved the way for his release.
Jae Williams, 29, was ordered released Monday at a juvenile court hearing in San Jose and walked out of the Santa Clara County jail the following day.
The release follows a multi-year court battle over the constitutionality of Senate Bill 1391 — a state law passed in 2018 that outlawed charging teens under 16 as adults in criminal court — and how the court system would apply it to Williams, who was 15 when he and Randy Thompson killed their classmate Michael Russell.
Russell’s aunt, Cathy Russell, said her family struggled with the inevitability of Williams’ release.
“Even if you know it’s coming, you can’t prepare yourself until it happens. We’ve had a lot of sleepless nights. To us, he’s the same person we saw from beginning to the end,” Russell said in an interview Wednesday.
“It brings up everything with Michael,” she added. “We think about what he would be doing and how he would be living his life now. It’s such a slap in the face when Michael is the one who should be here.”
But Williams’ longtime attorney, Lewis Romero, and advocates for the juvenile justice law — who contended that charging teens as adults does not improve public safety — said Williams is a sterling case of someone who has truly reformed in the face of stark obstacles in the state prison system.
Romero cited numerous reports about Williams undergoing counseling, earning his high school diploma and reading over 400 books. The attorney also noted that his client has had no instance of violence during nearly 15 years in jail and prison, which included stints in the San Quentin, Soledad and Solano facilities.
“Not one single act of violence, he only did good. Nobody does that,” Romero said in an interview Wednesday. “This is our best predictor of release, the absence of violence. The question shouldn’t be what he will do once he’s released. We have 15 years to look at.”
Williams and Thompson were convicted in 2014 of fatally stabbing 15-year-old Michael Russell in his family’s South San Jose backyard five years earlier in what was dubbed as a Satanist-inspired “thrill kill,” or the “Devil Boys” murder.
Williams was initially sentenced to 26 years to life in prison before his case was transferred to local juvenile court after the passage of SB 1391. Thompson, who received a similar sentence after he was convicted, was unaffected by the law because he was 16 during the killing. Thompson is being held at San Quentin State Prison with his first parole consideration set for May 2028.
Williams was eligible for resentencing under SB 1391 because his case was on appeal when the law passed.
The Williams case was one of a select few that served as legal battlegrounds for SB 1391. After its passage, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen and other California county prosecutors argued that the law was an unconstitutional transfer of power to the judiciary, but the state Supreme Court responded with a unanimous decision affirming the law’s validity.
From there, Russell’s family and other supporters, including Rosen, argued that Williams was part of a group of “exceptional” youth offenders who posed a palpable public safety risk if released early.
That did not divert the juvenile court, and with his release deemed inevitable two years ago — juvenile supervision expires once someone turns 25 — the court opted to place Williams in a jail-based transition program that existed in a bureaucratic netherworld because he was an adult under the purview of the juvenile probation system. Romero at the time described it as a waste of taxpayer money that denied his client of his Eighth Amendment rights.
Cathy Russell said nothing that has happened since has swayed her position.
“He was kind of the first pushed through this. The whole process was rushed,” she said. “He’s not a changed a man from two years from whatever kind of rehabilitation they say he’s gotten.”
She added: “There is no single thing that will change my mind.”
Romero acknowledged that sentiment, saying that nothing “will ever take away the wrong that people are suffering.”
“We can’t undo it,” he said. “But we can’t put children in cages forever.”
He added that prevailing scientific research, including that of UC-Irvine psychology professor Elizabeth Cauffman, who lent her expertise to Williams’ case, has firmly established a “maturity gap” that shows people’s brains are still developing through age 25 and that children who commit crimes are especially amenable to reform.
“The child who does the act is not the adult you punish,” Romero said.
Frankie Guzman, an attorney at the National Center for Youth Law who was incarcerated as a teen, said the criminal-justice system has to follow through on its promises to help those who demonstrate growth and improvement.
“Most people will turn their life around if we allow them and give them the opportunities. We spend $15 billion on rehabilitation,” he said, referring to California’s annual prison budget. “Either we believe in it, or we don’t, and then why are we spending this money?”
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