By Wendy Thomas Russell
Staff writer
This is a reproduction of the Long Beach Press-Telegram series on Three Strikes. Dated October 29, 2000. |
| |
| Six years after voters overwhelmingly approved it, California's "Three Strikes and You're Out Law" has turned into a plea-bargaining tool for Los Angeles County prosecutors rather than a guaranteed, long-term sentence for habitual offenders. |
| |
| The law, affirmed by voters in November 1994, calls for a prison sentence of 25 years to life when someone previously convicted of two serious or violent felonies is convicted of another felony, violent or not. |
| |
| But in reality, a Press-Telegram study has found: |
| |
| Nearly 80 percent of the 956 three-strikes defendants sentenced in Long Beach during the law's first five years ended in shorter prison terms than the law's "mandatory 25 years to life. |
| |
| Seventy-two percent of the 956 Long Beach cases - about 700 of them - drew terms of less than 10 years, and nearly half ended in terms of less than five years. |
| |
| Enforcement of the law varies widely across the state, as local prosecutors tailor their policies to fit the political slants of the residents. San Francisco, for example, is as lenient with the law as San Diego is rigid. |
| |
| Opinions vary on whether the law is accomplishing what it set out to do: to lock up habitual offenders so they can't commit further crimes. |
| |
| Supporters say it's reducing crime, as voters and legislators intended. Opponents say it's applied unfairly, and that crime is also declining in states that don't have a three-strikes law. |
| |
| What's clear is that in Long Beach and other parts of Los Angeles County, the law's tough prison terms are anything but automatic. |
| |
| Of the 956 Long Beach three-strikes cases, some were found to have been ified mistakenly, meaning the defendant was initially thought to be a third striker but prosecutors later discovered that he or she didn't qualify. |
| |
| Others were cases in which judges used their discretion dunng sentencing to "strike strikes," turning an official blind eye to one or more of the person's previous crimes that
the latest offense didn't qualify as a third strike.
|
| |
| (There also were about 30 acquittals, not included in the 956 sentences.) |
| |
| Most of the sentences involved plea bargains, interviews and court files show. That means prosecutors agreed to ignore one or more of a defendant's past crimes in exchange for pleading guilty or no contest to the latest offense. |
| |
| In those instances, prosecutors either found weaknesses in the defendant's current case or decided that the person's criminal history might not merit 25 years to life, says Stephen Kay, head deputy with the Long Beach branch of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. |
| |
| "I look at the 25-years-to-life as sort of a Lifetime Achievement Award," Kay says. "And has the defendant earned that award? Some have and some haven't." |
| |
| Striking Strikes |
| |
| Local prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges shun the term "plea bargaining" to describe their three-strikes trading, preferring to call it "case settlement" and "striking strikes." |
| |
| The three-strikes law has always afforded prosecutors the right to strike strikes, and the U.S. Supreme Court has since expanded that right to judges. But originally, the practice was viewed as an exception to the rule - an "out" for third-time felons it was felt didn't deserve a life behind bars. |
| |
| Kay says it's still used that way in the Long Beach courthouse - but only if the defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest. District Attorney Gil Garcetti's Next Page -> |
