A THREE-STRIKES FIX ISN'T DEAD

Proposition 66's defeat should not represent the end of efforts to correct
the injustices in California's three-strikes law, but a start. Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger's eleventh-hour fear-mongering dramatically spun voters
against the measure. But Wednesday, the governor signaled that he might be
open to making the narrow fixes this broad-brush sentencing law needs.
Should he act, it will be the first display of leadership after a decade of
demagoguery over this law.

Two dozen states and the federal government have passed "three strikes and
you're out" laws, but only in California can any felony, even a petty
theft, trigger a 25-year-to-life sentence. Everyone has heard the stories
- -- of the guy who swiped a slice of pizza and the father who pinched
diapers for his kids. Of California's 7,300 third-strikers, 4,200 are like
these lifers, put away for relatively minor offenses. Their "three hots and
a cot" cost taxpayers $31,000 a year each.

Proposition 66 would have brought California law into line with other
states, reserving the harshest punishment for repeat criminals whose third
felony was a violent or serious one. Polls found that most Californians saw
that as fair and cost-effective -- until the governor took to the airwaves.

The measure also directed judges to resentence third-strikers whose
felonies would no longer automatically justify life behind bars. Some who
had already served years for nonserious or nonviolent crimes would probably
have been released. That would have been appropriate. Less defensible, as
this editorial page noted, was the proposition's redefinition of felonies
considered a third strike. Burglary and arson, under some circumstances,
would no longer have been serious enough for the maximum penalty. District
attorneys persuaded the governor that these changes made the measure too
lenient.

In late photo ops and TV ads, Schwarzenegger marshaled former governors --
Democrats and Republicans -- who feverishly insisted that if Proposition 66
passed, the prison doors would swing open, flooding the streets with
killers. Those bipartisan but distorted appeals scared voters, and the
measure tanked, losing 53% to 47%.

In the wake of its defeat, Schwarzenegger seems to realize that the status
quo is no good either, and has promised to confer with the attorney general
and lawmakers to "see if there's anything that ought to be adjusted."

That's more than Pete Wilson or Gray Davis did even as the law's inequities
became obvious. Schwarzenegger should follow through now.

By putting his considerable clout behind positive change, instead of more
scare tactics, the governor could push timid legislators to pass the modest
trims that would finally bring fairness to this harsh law.