3-STRIKES CASE STIRS NEW LEGAL DEBATES

PASADENA -- Attorneys introduced a new legal debate Friday to the
battle over a minor drug offender facing life under the state's
three- strikes law.

A defense attorney complained Friday that the District Attorney's
Office went "forum shopping," and violated Dale Sheldon Barnes'
constitutional rights when it simultaneously refiled his case and
disqualified the judge who dismissed it last week.

Legislators who created the law allowing the refiling wrote that it
"shall not be construed as a means to forum shop."

The law also requires that the case return to the original judge if
he's available.

However, a judge said Friday that the original judge must be
considered unavailable because of the disqualification -- a point of
law that Los Angeles public defenders are already appealing to the
state Supreme Court in another case.

"When a judge is disqualified, a judge is unavailable," said Pasadena
Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz, who also set an Aug. 14
preliminary hearing.

Barnes' defense attorney, Beatrice Ingram, said she'll stall the
hearing as she appeals Schwartz's ruling and awaits a decision on the
state Supreme Court case.

"This is not an ordinary three-strikes case," De Carteret insisted
Friday. "This is a 15-strikes case."

But Pasadena Superior Court Judge Terry Smerling -- a former staff
attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who has lobbied for a
liberalization of the three-strikes law -- sees the case differently.

The first time the case was in front of him, Smerling set aside most
of Barnes' strikes and sentenced him to eight years.

An appellate court found that Smerling abused his discretion and
overturned the sentence, but the case returned to the same judge.

During an evidentiary hearing last week, a witness contradicted
Pasadena police accounts that Barnes was seen dropping a plastic bag
of cocaine on April 15, 1998, outside his home at 1579 N. Raymond
Ave. The witness said Barnes didn't drop anything, and that police
searched him.

Smerling said he was swayed by the witness's testimony. He ruled the
search improper and dismissed the case -- prompting De Carteret to
suggest Smerling was just looking once more to spare Barnes a life
sentence.

"I don't know if the court has a personal interest vested in this
case," De Carteret told Smerling, "but there's no reason for the
officer to have lied."