Supreme Court is going to take a formal look at Three Strikes laws<\/a>, in particular California’s, which is one of the toughest in the nation. <\/p>\nThe idea behind Three Strikes laws is attractive: if someone has shown that they are an habitual criminal, then lock ’em up for good. <\/p>\n
The problem is that what constitutes a strike, or the third strike, varies from state to state, leading to what seems to be injustices, as in the cases being brought before the Supremes. In one of the two, a man who was caught stuffing video tapes down his pants was sentenced to 50 years in prison.<\/p>\n
Part of the problem, IMO, is that we don’t have a solid societal philosophy behind what our legal system is supposed to accomplish. Do we send folks away to punish them? To convince\/teachg them not to transgress in the future? Once someone’s out of prison, past any formal probation period, what does that mean? When it is reasonable to draw on someone’s past behavior to affect how we treat them in the present?<\/p>\n
Once Upon a Time, we had this concept of a prisoner “paying his debt to society.” I think a lot of folks still feel that way. But I think there’s also a sense of distrust in the judicial system, a feeling that folks get away with horrible crimes, or get slapped on the wrist and then turned loose on an unsuspecting public.<\/p>\n
California’s Three Strike law came into being after 12-year-old Polly Klaas was kidnapped and murdered by a repeat offender on parole. I was in Northern California on a job assignment when that happened, not far from that area, and I remember the righteous indignation that the animal who did this had been in prison over and over again and was still free to commit such a crime.<\/p>\n
But … but … are we punishing the crime, or the criminal? Is it fair if someone who commits crime X gets charged with a misdemeanor, subject to 30-60 days in the cooler, while someone else who commits exactly the same crime <\/i>gets charged with a felony and gets 50 years? Is that cruel or unusual?<\/p>\n
We’ll see what the Supremes say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No, this isn’t an “Opening Day of Baseball” (yawn) post. The US Supreme Court is going to take a formal look at Three Strikes laws, in particular California’s, which is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[715,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-punishment","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":33176,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/13\/because-narrow-surgical-strikes-always-work-right.html","url_meta":{"origin":1969,"position":0},"title":"Because narrow surgical strikes always work, right?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 13-Apr-13 9:51am","format":false,"excerpt":"And because there is no international problem that cannot be solved by lobbing missiles \/ bombs \/ drones \/ Marines at it, right?Reshared post from +Paula JonesThe war hawks are already hitting mainstream media. I just can't buy the idea of a pre-emptive \u00a0strike on North Korea. Bomb North Korea,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131113,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/18\/drone-strikes-for-me-but-not-for-thee.html","url_meta":{"origin":1969,"position":1},"title":"Drone strikes for me, but not for thee","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 18-Jul-16 11:03am","format":false,"excerpt":"Since the government of Turkey is claiming that someone within the US is a threat to their national security, a leader in efforts to overthrow the Turkish government, and an all-around bad guy ...... and since they have requested extradition of this person to Turkey, and the US has refused\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29851,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/16\/lightning-strikes.html","url_meta":{"origin":1969,"position":2},"title":"Lightning strikes","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 16-Aug-12 7:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"What concrete hit by a lightning bolt looks like. \u00a0Awesome.Reshared post from +Dan Eastwood Embedded Link Pattern resulting from a lightning strike to a sidewalk Pattern resulting from a lightning strike to a sidewalk Google+: View post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7282,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/04\/07\/theres_a_statis.html","url_meta":{"origin":1969,"position":3},"title":"There’s a statistic for you","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 7-Apr-05 2:06pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A car moving at 40 mph strikes a wall with the same force as if it had fallen off a 50 foot cliff. The occupants strike the dashboard and windshield...","rel":"","context":"In "Cars"","block_context":{"text":"Cars","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/cars"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":870,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/11\/08\/paging_inspecto.html","url_meta":{"origin":1969,"position":4},"title":"Paging Inspector Javert …","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Nov-01 11:10am","format":false,"excerpt":"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...","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":50179,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/27\/some-drone-victims-are-more-equal-than-others.html","url_meta":{"origin":1969,"position":5},"title":"Some drone victims are more equal than others","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 27-Apr-15 2:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The politicians and pundits wringing their hands over the drone strike death of an Italian and an American hostage are intentionally ignoring the fact that we know drone strikes have killed innocent bystanders before, but the citizenry of the United States (at least) doesn't seem to much care when it's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47906,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions\/47906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}