THREE-STRIKES LAW MISGUIDED

Since the 1800s, West Virginia has had a mandatory "three strikes and
you're out" law. State code 61-11-18 commands that three-time felons
must "be confined in the penitentiary for life," without exception.

But this tough law rarely is enforced, because Mountain State
prosecutors and judges learned long ago that many felonies are
relatively minor, and it's cruel to impose an extreme penalty for
them. So the law usually is discreetly ignored, unless savage crimes
were committed.

Much of America is learning this same lesson. The law-and-order mood
of the late 1900s caused 26 states and the federal government to pass
three-strikes laws - but a backlash is erupting.

California - which has a giant prison system, bigger than the combined
lockups of France and Germany - has been dismayed by mandatory
25-to-life terms imposed for shoplifting, drug-sniffing and other
petty crimes.

"The man who grabbed a slice of pizza from some kids on the beach, the
homeless derelict who filched four chocolate chip cookies" - absurd
examples like these are cited in this week's Time. It quoted a
Hispanic warehouse worker:

"My brother was put away for half a gram of cocaine. He was an addict,
but he had a job, he had a family, and he never hurt anyone. Now he is
buried alive, and he won't get out until he is 80."

Is this justice? Or is it punitive overkill?

California juries refuse to convict some petty thieves, upon learning
that a guilty verdict could bring a life term, the magazine says. Some
judges and prosecutors, like their West Virginia counterparts, evade
the law.

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard appeals from two California
defendants - one who stole three golf clubs, another who stole nine
videos for Christmas gifts - who face the same terms as murderers.

We hope the high court rules that California's law can't be imposed
for nonviolent crimes.

That would make the three-strikes principle fairer. And it would
affect West Virginia's law, limiting its enforcement to violent crimes
- - which is pretty much the way it has been enforced, anyway.