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A SPECIAL REPORT |
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WEIGHING LIVESJudges use discretion to cut 3-strikes terms |
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| Editor's note: Almost 80 percent of local three-strikes defendants receive less than the "mandatory minimum" prison term of 25 years to life, approved by voters six years ago, according to a Press-Telegram study of defendants sentenced in the Long Beach courthouse. Most of the reduced sentences stem from plea-bargain deals offered by prosecutors. But judges, too, play a role in reducing third-strike sentences. | |||||||||
| By Wendy Thomas Russell Staff writer This is a reproduction of the Long Beach Press-Telegram series on Three Strikes. Dated October 30, 2000. |
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| LONG BEACH - Gerry Tyrone Brown's best chance to escape the three-strikes law was staring him in the face. But he didn't much like the way it looked. | |||||||||
| Brown, a 44-year-old with a 15-year history of burglaries, had been charged with stealing tools from a residential garage in Long Beach. Under California's three-strikes law, he faced a mandatory 25-year-tolife sentence. But on this day in 1998, a Long Beach Superior Court prosecutor had offered him a deal: seven years in prison in exchange for a plea of guilty or no contest. If he turned down the deal and was convicted at trial, only a judge's mercy could save him from the more ominous three-strikes sentence. And Judge Arthur Jean, who was presiding over Brown's case, made it clear that his hands were tied more tightly than the prosecutor's. | |||||||||
| Still, court transcripts show, Brown was hesitant. Seven years didn't seem too "generous" for one commercial burglary, he told Judge Jean. | |||||||||
| "Look, Mr. Brown, we have a three-strikes law on the books," warned Jean, who could sense Brown's best chance beginning to fade. | |||||||||
| "Essentially, what the people of this state have said is, 'We're sick and tired of being ripped off, of having our homes and cars stolen and burgled and entered and having our garages entered. We're sick and tired of people doing this stuff. And it's time to start increasing prison sentences, time to start putting guys away for longer and longer periods of time." | |||||||||
| "The voters want that," Jean continued, the governor wants that. The Legislature wants that. My neighbors want that. The people that I see at a community function want that. The jurors want that. The people who are living law-abiding lives in homes, and want to be safe in their homes, and want to keep what they work for, want that. | |||||||||
| "So," Jean said, "You're caught up in that whether you like it or not. And that's the way it is. Some pretty tough sentences have come out of this courthouse in the last two years ... We get people going away for 25-to-life for a pack of cigarettes because of their back.' ground, their long history of criminal activity." | |||||||||
| The speech was one of many Jean has made over the last six years. Often, he says, felons are oblivious to the ramifications of the law, and it's up to court officials to explain them - especially when a felon is Next Page -> | |||||||||
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