50 YEARS FOR A $153 THEFT?

Supreme Court Will At Least Hear Case On State's Three-Strikes Law; It
Would Be Wise To Restore Proportion

Leandro Andrade, a heroin addict and burglar, was caught twice shoplifting
videotapes. Total value, $153.54. Total sentence, 50 years to life.

Too much time for the crime, said the federal Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals; such a "grossly disproportionate" sentence violates the
Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

Andrade received such a severe sentence under California's three-strikes
law. His prior drug and burglary convictions made the petty thefts count as
felonies. As a third and fourth strike, they were punished by consecutive
sentences of 25 years to life.

The sentence is too long, and now the U.S. Supreme Court will have the
opportunity to say so. The court will consider Andrade's case, together
with a similar one in which a man, also as a third-strike, received 25
years to life for stealing three golf clubs, worth $1,200.

The court's decision to hear the cases offers hope that it will bring some
sense of proportion to the three-strikes law. California has the toughest
three-strikes law in the nation, the only one that allows a shoplifting
misdemeanor to become a felony by virtue of prior convictions, which can
then trigger a 25-years-to-life sentence.

To be sure, the high court might be taking the case not to ease the
penalty, but to endorse it, which is why California Attorney General Bill
Lockyer is welcoming the court's attention. Or it might rule more generally
that states have the authority to impose as harsh a sentence as they want,
short of death, without federal review. Some earlier rulings point in that
direction.

The case is not about whether California can have a three-strikes law.
Clearly it can. The issue before the court is whether petty theft may be
punished more severely than are many violent crimes, for first-time offenders.

The Ninth Circuit rightly said it may not be. In a later decision, also a
likely candidate for Supreme Court review, it ruled that petty theft can
never be a third strike. Under a reasonable three-strikes law, it never
would be.