California’s Three Strikes law is under fire. A federal appeals court agreed that sending someone up the river for 50 years for shoplifting $150 in video tapes is “cruel and unusual.”
I was “stationed” in northern California during the Polly Klaas kidnapping-murder, so I saw first-hand the rage in the populace at “revolving door justice.” The furious debate that followed led to Pete Wilson pushing through the strictest Three Strikes law in the nation.
But, inevitably, mandatory sentencing laws lead to injustices, because they cannot take into account the full range of mitigating circumstances or conditions that justice requires. (One could also argue that a lack of mandatory sentencing rules leads instead to caprice on the part of the judiciary, which argument also has some merit.)
Granted, in California the DA has the discretion whether to seek Three Strikes punishment. The head of the California DA Association comments, “The fact of the matter is that most DAs have used better discretion in avoiding situations like this.” Maybe so — but that it is at the DA’s discretion simply means we’re moving that “caprice” around — and DAs are, of course, in the business of locking up bad guys, so guess which way things will tend to lean.
That the DA in the case in question used less than “better discretion” is small comfort to Leandro Andrade, sitting in a cell for most of the rest of his life.
Most states with Three Strikes laws have safeguards to make sure that only violent crimes are considered. California’s law allows for any three felonies to count — and a string of misdemeanors (e.g., shoplifting a few videos) can be treated as a felony under California law. In some ways that makes sense, in terms of locking up habitual offenders. But if your perspective is just on the case at hand (the ex-con having, presumably, “served his debt to society”), it comes up looking pretty harsh.