3-STRIKES LAW GOES TOO FAR

When The Third Felony Can Be Shoplifting And The Sentence Is 25-To-Life,
Something Is Wrong

CALIFORNIA'S "three-strikes and you're out" law has done what was intended
- -- and more. Too much more.

Along with ensnaring violent criminals, it is stuffing thousands of
non-violent offenders into its big net. All are getting the same 25-year to
life sentences.

The three-strikes law doesn't distinguish, for purposes of the third and
final strike, between thieves and rapists. Judges and district attorneys
have the power to make that distinction, but, in too many lock-'em-up
counties, they're not using it.

The law is wasting tens of millions of tax dollars by warehousing aging
criminals and wasting lives.

Last fall, a federal appeals court threw out the 50-year sentence, without
possible parole, given to Leandro Andrade for stealing nine videos from two
Kmarts in San Bernardino County. The court said the sentence -- in effect
life imprisonment for 37-year-old Andrade -- was cruel and unusual
punishment, violating the Constitution's 8th Amendment.

The court discarded only this particular sentence, not, unfortunately, the
offensive portions of the law. That remains the job of legislators and
voters. Efforts are now under way to do that.

Citizens Against Violent Crime is collecting signatures to place an
initiative on this year's November ballot. It would limit the three strikes
provisions to violent crimes and order re-sentencing hearings for those
given extra time for non-violent offenses.

AB 1790, sponsored by Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, would
put a similar initiative on the March 2004 ballot. Unlike the citizens
group's proposal, "serious" non-violent felonies, such as arson and
residential burglary, would remain strikable offenses.

Voters, by 3 to 1, passed three strikes in 1994. While some may have
assumed it would apply only to violent criminals, today fewer than half of
7,072 inmates serving 25 to life committed a violent offense as a third
strike. Drug offenders outnumber murderers and rapists. The ranks include
hundreds of check forgers and thieves like Andrade.

The maximum sentence can be invoked when someone with two prior serious or
violent felonies is convicted of a third felony. Any felony. Even
misdemeanors, when elevated to felonies under quirks of law. Crimes that
normally would bring six months get 25 years.

Judges can waive an enhanced sentence. That's a reason third-strike
sentencing fell 40 percent from 1996 to 2000.

District attorneys have discretion, too. Some, like the Santa Clara County
DA, have been more judicious in seeking the penalties, as an analysis by
Mercury News reporter Connie Skipitares showed. You're more than twice as
likely to see a third-strike sentence in Kern County than in Santa Clara
County and 12 times more likely in Kern than in San Francisco.

Disparities underscore three strikes' unintended consequences. The only way
to fix the law is to amend it.