Three strikes law

A new effort to restrict California's controversial three strikes law to violent offenders has been launched by strange bedfellows — Los Angeles County's top prosecutor and a prominent criminal-defence lawyer. State officials said Tuesday that Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley and Brian Dunn, an attorney with the law firm of the late Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., have jointly filed a proposed initiative called the Three Strikes Reform Act of 2006.

A signature drive to get the measure on the November ballot could start as soon as next month. The proposed measure calls for revisions to the state's 1994 three-strikes law, which provides for prison sentences of 25 years to life for a felony conviction if the person has two prior violent or serious offences, or "strikes." (Siegel, Larry , 25-35) Currently any felony can serve as a third strike, but under the initiative, the third conviction would have to be for a violent or serious offence, except in cases in which the offender had previously committed murder, rape or child molestation(Zimring, 25-45).

Defendants whose third felony conviction was for a gun offence, possessing large quantities of drugs or some sex crimes would not get easier treatment under the proposal: Their offences would still count as third strikes. The idea of a prosecutor and defence attorney working together to propose changes to the three strikes law may seem odd, Dunn said. But "we are both interested fundamentally in making sure this law works fairly." (Siegel, Larry , 25-35)

For prosecutors, the concern has been that continued public opposition to the perceived harshness of three strikes might ultimately trigger a political backlash. "Our slogan is fixing it or lose it," (Currie, 45) Cooley said. The proposal is the second effort in two years to put revisions to the three strikes law before California voters. In November 2004, voters narrowly rejected Proposition 66, which would have broadly limited the law and redefined some of the crimes considered strikes In 1994, California voters overwhelming approved Proposition 184, the "Three Strikes," (Asuncion, 256-380)' which mandated a sentence of 25 years to life imprisonment for anyone convicted of any felony if that per­son had been previously convicted of two or more serious or violent felonies.

The law also doubled the penalty for any­one convicted of a felony who had been pre­viously convicted of one serious or violent felony, a second-strike Thousands of recidivists have been Impris­oned under, the second and third-strike statutory schemes. Some ob­servers credit the declin­ing crime rates in most counties to this recidi­vist sentencing law.

At first, many prose­cutors and judges felt "'Three Strikes" sentences were mandatory in all qualifying cases(Siegel, Larry , 25-35), no matter what the nature of the triggering' felony.

In California, many crimes are pun­ishable as felonies but are not labelled as serious or violent by the Penal Code(Asuncion, 256-380). A second shoplifting offence, writing a bad check for more than $200 and possess­ing a small amount of illegal drugs for personal use are all felonies that could ...