HIGH COURT REJECTS '3 STRIKES' APPEAL

ALLOWS 25 TO LIFE SENTENCE TO STAND FOR MAN WHO STOLE BOTTLE OF VITAMINS

The Supreme Court yesterday turned aside the appeal of a man sentenced to 25
years to life in prison for stealing a bottle of vitamins under California's
"three-strikes-and-you're-out" law.

The justices declined to take an appeal in which Michael Riggs challenged
California's sentencing law providing lengthy sentences for repeat
offenders. Riggs argued the law violated his 8th Amendment protection
against cruel and unusual punishment.

Justice Stephen Breyer voted to hear Riggs' challenge, but four votes are
needed for the Supreme Court to take a case.

Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the
appeal raises "obviously substantial" issues. However, the three said it is
"prudent" for the justices to postpone consideration until the California
Supreme Court and lower federal courts rule on whether California's scheme
for elevating petty thefts to felonies for three-strikes sentencing purposes
constitutes an impermissible and "unique quirk in state law."

Riggs was convicted of shoplifting the vitamins from a grocery store in
Banning, Calif., in 1995 and was sentenced in accordance with California's
three-strikes statute because of his previous convictions on a variety of
crimes, including car theft, attempted burglary, robbery and check fraud.

In a long appeal he wrote himself from prison in Corcoran, Calif., Riggs
contended his long sentence violated his rights to due process and to
protection against cruel and unusual punishment because his sentence was
disproportionate to the crime of shoplifting.

He also said his sentence wrongly punished him for crimes he committed
before California voters approved the three-strikes ballot initiative in
1994.

A state appeals court rejected Riggs' arguments in 1997 while describing his
offense as "a petty theft motivated by homelessness and hunger." The
California Supreme Court refused to take up his appeal last year.

California prosecutors had urged the Supreme Court to reject Riggs' appeal
on the grounds that California's sentencing rules comply with prior high
court rulings, including a 1980 case in which the justices upheld a life
sentence for a Texas man whose three convictions were for an $80 credit card
fraud, forging a $28 check and falsely obtaining $120.

Most recently, the justices ruled in 1991 that only those sentences that are
"grossly disproportionate" to the crime alleged will be voided.

That decision was handed down in the case of a Michigan man sentenced to
life in prison without possibility of parole for possessing a small amount
of cocaine.

In other action yesterday, the Supreme Court:

* Refused to stop Florida's use of the electric chair as the sole means of
carrying out the death penalty.

The high court, without comment, rejected an appeal by Eduardo Lopez, who
was sentenced to die for murdering a child during a 1983 house robbery in
Dade County. Lopez contended electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment
in violation of the 8th Amendment.

* Rejected an attempt by anti-abortion activists Randall Terry and Operation
Rescue to sue Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., for defamation over comments he
made to a 1994 fund-raiser and press conference, alleging the group had a
national policy of "firebombing and even murder."

A Boston trial judge and the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals there
rejected the defamation claims, ruling that Kennedy's remarks were entitled
to be shielded from liability because they fell within the scope of his
employment of telling his constituents about pending legislation: here, the
Freedom of Access to Clinics Act.

* Turned down a customer lawsuit against Ticketmaster for allegedly
violating federal antitrust laws by monopolizing the market for concert
tickets and illegally fixing their prices.