HIGH COURT TO REVIEW THREE-STRIKE LAW FOR CAREER CRIMINALS

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider whether some
three-strikes-and-out sentencing laws result in unconstitutionally harsh
prison terms, such as up to life behind bars for shoplifting videotapes
from Kmart.

The court agreed to hear appeals involving two California thieves sentenced
to terms ranging from 25 years to life for small-time crimes that otherwise
might have meant just a few months in jail.

The Supreme Court will consider whether a long sentence was
unconstitutionally cruel or unusual punishment for a heroin addict who
shoplifted videotapes worth $153.

Another case involves an AIDS patient who shoved three golf clubs down his
pants leg and tried to walk out of a pro shop. The court's eventual ruling
could be limited to the way the law is applied in California, or it could
make a more general statement about how far states may go in using similar
laws to impose long prison terms for relatively minor crimes. Twenty-six
states and the federal government have some version of a three-strikes law,
which typically allows a life prison term or something close to it for a
criminal convicted of a third felony.

Critics say the laws are too harsh and inflexible in general, and
particularly so in California, which has the nation's strictest
three-strikes law. It requires a sentence of 25 years to life in prison for
any felony conviction if the criminal was previously convicted of two
serious or violent felonies.

"If an individual is charged with growing a single marijuana plant, and he
has on his record two qualifying prior convictions, he's dog meat," said
Jerome P. Mullins, a San Jose, Calif., criminal defense lawyer with several
clients prosecuted under the state three-strikes law.

"He's looking at 25-to-life for growing a plant," Mullins said.

Crimes that otherwise might be considered misdemeanors may also be
considered felonies, meaning that a simple shoplifting charge can trigger
the three-strikes provision.

"No other state in the country has such a sentencing scheme where
misdemeanor conduct can be the basis for an indeterminate life sentence,"
said Erwin Chemerinsky, a University of Southern California Law School
professor.

California voters and lawmakers approved the three-strikes law in 1994 amid
public furor over the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas.
Richard A. Davis, a repeat offender on parole at the time of the
kidnapping, was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death.

Other states and the federal government also passed three-strikes laws in
the 1990s, when the spread of crack cocaine fed public fears about rising
violent crime.

California Secretary of State Bill Jones, an author of the state's 1994
law, credited the law with helping lower crime in the state by 41 percent,
more than twice the national average decline in the same period. "We
clearly focused the law on that small percentage of the criminal population
that commits the vast majority of the crime in our society," Jones said
Monday. The law is getting career criminals off the street and serves as a
deterrent for criminals who already have one or two felonies on their
record, Jones said.