CRITICS OF '3 STRIKES' LAW PLAN TO CONTINUE PUSH FOR CHANGE

Californians will never know whether Proposition 66, a measure to reform
the state's "three strikes" law, would have led to the release of thousands
of "murderers, rapists and child molesters."

But using that imagery in a multimillion-dollar television blitz last week,
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used his unrivaled political clout to persuade
scores of California voters to change their minds and vote down Proposition
66 by a 53 to 47 percent ratio.

Now, the decade-old fight over the toughest sentencing law in the nation is
back to square one. Even critics of Proposition 66 concede the hard-fought
campaign is likely to produce reforms to a law put in place after the Polly
Klaas kidnapping and murder by felon Richard Allen Davis.

"Nobody is under the delusion that because this thing didn't pass, this is
going to be the end of it," said Santa Clara County prosecutor David
Tomkins, a three-strikes expert who opposed Proposition 66. "This sniping
over three strikes needs to end."

Schwarzenegger himself said Wednesday that he planned to consult with
Attorney General Bill Lockyer and legislators on possible improvements to
the law.

"If there's something wrong with it you know that needs to be adjusted,
then we should do that," he said.

Proposition 66 backers argued they were fixing the most unfair aspect of
the three-strikes law, which has even divided the Klaas family. California
is the only state that permits judges to impose 25-years-to-life prison
terms for a non-violent third strike. The measure would have required that
only a violent or serious felony third strike could trigger a life sentence.

Until recently, polls showed voters overwhelmingly approving the measure.
But in what pollsters say was the most abrupt shift in memory on a state
ballot measure, the numbers changed dramatically during the last week of
the campaign. Schwarzenegger, former governors, the state's prison guards'
union and billionaire Henry Nicholas, the founder of the Irvine-based
semiconductor company Broadcom, threw their weight and millions of dollars
in campaign contributions into defeating the reforms.

"We just got carpet-bombed in the last couple of days," said Sandy
Harrison, the Yes on 66 spokesman.

Prosecutors warned that the law was written so broadly that it could
release more than 20,000 felons from state prisons. Proposition 66
supporters said prosecutors were misleading voters with those figures,
contending only about 4,000 inmates would be eligible for release.

Prosecutors like Tomkins say reforms could be crafted to address the
concerns of three-strikes critics, such as by creating a "tiered" system of
sentencing for non-violent third strikes that would make defendants
eligible for parole in seven years instead of 25.

Long-frustrated three-strikes critics say they will keep pushing for change.

"We'll just get back on the horse," said Geri Silva, head of Families to
Amend Three Strikes. "People really want to see this law reformed."