ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE APPROVES BILL EXEMPTING DRUG POSSESSION FROM THREE
STRIKES

Addicts caught with their drugs should not spend decades in prison under
the state's Three Strikes law, an Assembly committee decided Tuesday.
Citing the voters' wishes in approving Proposition 36 last fall, the Public
Safety Committee voted 4-2 for a bill that would exempt felony drug
possession convictions from the popular Three Strikes law.

The bill attempts to reconcile crime-related voter sentiment as expressed
in two very different landmark initiatives approved over the past seven years.

In 1994, voters passed the Three Strikes law. It requires a person with a
previous conviction for a serious or violent felony to get a doubled
sentence for a second conviction or second "strike." A person with two
previous serious or violent convictions found guilty of any felony is sent
to prison for 25 years to life.

Last November, voters approved Proposition 36. Beginning July 1, it
requires people convicted of drug possession to be sent to treatment
instead of prison.

People with prior felony convictions will be eligible for treatment under
Proposition 36 if they have remained out of prison for five years and free
of non-drug felony and violent misdemeanor convictions.

The bill would cover people convicted of simple drug possession who don't
fit into those Proposition 36 limits.

Backers said voters only want violent criminals sent to prison for long
terms and want drug users treated instead.

"We believe that this particularly bill will change dramatically the lives
of some folks who basically commit crimes in order to support drug habits,"
said the author, Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles.

The 34-year-old son of Vivian Moen of Fountain Valley has been in prison
for six years, sentenced to 25 years to life for possession of "$10 worth
of cocaine," she said.

He had previously spent a total of 21/2 years in prison for two burglary
convictions - one for taking his stepmother's keyboard and one for going to
a friend's ex-girlfriend's house to get CDs, she said.

"This is not justice," Moen said. "He was never offered any rehabilitation
or any drug treatment of any kind."

According to the Department of Corrections, 637 people were serving life
sentences as of February for "third strike" possession of small amounts of
narcotics.

Opponents of the bill say Three Strikes has caused the state's crime rate
to drop and should not be weakened.

"We believe the Three Strike law is a powerful tool for the justice system
to warehouse the worst of the worst in the state," said Larry Brown of the
California District Attorneys Association. He added that prosecutors and
judges have discretion in cases where the third felony is a relatively
minor one.

"In my district, Compton and Watts, everybody who gets convicted under
Three Strikes goes to prison for 25 years to life," countered the committee
chairman, Assemblyman Carl Washington, D-Paramount.

Brown said he would be "shocked" if that were the case.

"You need to come to Compton then," replied Washington.

The bill goes to the Appropriations Committee.

Gov. Gray Davis, who has been reluctant in the past to weaken Three Strikes
or any other tough-on-crime laws, does not have a position on the bill,
spokesman Roger Salazar said Tuesday.