SJ_Latina
06-16-2004, 11:42 AM
Below is an article that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News last Friday about the California Three Strikes Law. Although Santa Clara County has the hardest stance on 3 Strikes, the good news is that it seems 76% of voters are in favor of ammending the law. I just want to remind everyone-Come Election time-GET OUT AND VOTE! For more information on ammending the Three Strikes law, go here http: www.facts1.com
Posted on Fri, Jun. 11, 2004
Minor-league `third strikes' fill prisonsBy L.A. Chung
Mercury News Staff Columnist
Barbara Fargo remembers talking to people signing petitions outside the movie theaters and shopping centers for the ``three strikes'' initiative a decade ago.
``People thought that the Richard Allen Davises of the world would be locked up rather than to be free to rape and kill little girls,'' Fargo, a Santa Clara County public defender, said.
And they have been. ``Absolutely,'' says the woman who was once voted California public defender of the year.
But so have the people like the guy who tried to steal food from a church pantry, she said. The person caught with methamphetamine. The person who was stealing golf clubs out of a garage. In addition to putting away the bad guys for life, we managed to put away petty bad guys for life, too.
Now it looks like the public might realize what it has wrought. The latest Field Poll shows 76 percent of California voters are in favor of revising the law so that only violent or serious felonies qualify for a ``third strike'' sentence.
``It was painted with such a broad brush, it drags in a whole other group of people that Joe Citizen didn't think would be covered,'' said Fargo, who now handles really-bad-guy murder cases.
Not all felonies are equal
Under the current law, anyone with two prior ``violent'' felonies can be put away for 25 years to life if that person commits a third felony of any kind. What constitutes a ``violent'' felony from the past is a list of offenses that can include burglary -- even in a garage of an unoccupied home. In certain cases, a 40-year-old who steals the golf clubs out of a garage can have his juvenile offenses count as the first "two strikes," even with a clean record in between.
A non-violent felony that constitutes a "third strike" could be as simple as writing a check on insubstantial funds. Possession of methamphetamine is a ``wobbler'' that could go either way. (Ordinary marijuana smokers, you're off the hook.)
Jed Harlan Miller had the notoriety of being the first ``three-strikes, you're out'' case in Santa Clara County. His qualifying third strike: stealing a truck into which he put two bicycles he stole on the Stanford University campus.
Miller was never an angel. He was a lifetime petty thief with one assault case that District Attorney George Kennedy contended left a person partially paralyzed. Charlie Gillan, Miller's public defender, said the assault was many years before the bike and car theft, the paralysis was disputed, and Miller himself was wounded in the incident.
Miller was pretty crummy, but he was no Richard Allen Davis. His long rap sheet was thick with thefts, driving on a suspended license, vagrancy -- basically a 37-year-old chronic thief living on the margins, Gillan said.
Neither was Willie Lloyd Stevens, another Gillan client, a sex offender who failed to re-register on his birthday. Nothing in Stevens' life had changed: He'd had the same address as always, had reported to his parole officer as always, and his employer testified he'd been a model employee, Gillan said.
A prosecutor's tool
District Attorney George Kennedy says he ``vigorously'' opposes any change to the law. Originally, he thought the law was unfair because the "third strike" could be any felony. He's since changed his mind. " `Three strikes' the way it is now, works." It's given him the tools to go after people who have ``a long and demonstrable pattern'' of violence, he said. Like Miller, who he contends would have committed more violent crimes.
The district attorneys in San Francisco and Los Angeles have made it a policy not to charge a "third strike" unless the crime is a violent one.
We've built something on the order of 20 new prisons in the past decade, and the corrections officers have the strongest union in the state.
That hasn't stopped the Xiana Fairchilds of the world from getting snatched off the street or the Christina Williamses from disappearing while walking their dogs.
Posted on Fri, Jun. 11, 2004
Minor-league `third strikes' fill prisonsBy L.A. Chung
Mercury News Staff Columnist
Barbara Fargo remembers talking to people signing petitions outside the movie theaters and shopping centers for the ``three strikes'' initiative a decade ago.
``People thought that the Richard Allen Davises of the world would be locked up rather than to be free to rape and kill little girls,'' Fargo, a Santa Clara County public defender, said.
And they have been. ``Absolutely,'' says the woman who was once voted California public defender of the year.
But so have the people like the guy who tried to steal food from a church pantry, she said. The person caught with methamphetamine. The person who was stealing golf clubs out of a garage. In addition to putting away the bad guys for life, we managed to put away petty bad guys for life, too.
Now it looks like the public might realize what it has wrought. The latest Field Poll shows 76 percent of California voters are in favor of revising the law so that only violent or serious felonies qualify for a ``third strike'' sentence.
``It was painted with such a broad brush, it drags in a whole other group of people that Joe Citizen didn't think would be covered,'' said Fargo, who now handles really-bad-guy murder cases.
Not all felonies are equal
Under the current law, anyone with two prior ``violent'' felonies can be put away for 25 years to life if that person commits a third felony of any kind. What constitutes a ``violent'' felony from the past is a list of offenses that can include burglary -- even in a garage of an unoccupied home. In certain cases, a 40-year-old who steals the golf clubs out of a garage can have his juvenile offenses count as the first "two strikes," even with a clean record in between.
A non-violent felony that constitutes a "third strike" could be as simple as writing a check on insubstantial funds. Possession of methamphetamine is a ``wobbler'' that could go either way. (Ordinary marijuana smokers, you're off the hook.)
Jed Harlan Miller had the notoriety of being the first ``three-strikes, you're out'' case in Santa Clara County. His qualifying third strike: stealing a truck into which he put two bicycles he stole on the Stanford University campus.
Miller was never an angel. He was a lifetime petty thief with one assault case that District Attorney George Kennedy contended left a person partially paralyzed. Charlie Gillan, Miller's public defender, said the assault was many years before the bike and car theft, the paralysis was disputed, and Miller himself was wounded in the incident.
Miller was pretty crummy, but he was no Richard Allen Davis. His long rap sheet was thick with thefts, driving on a suspended license, vagrancy -- basically a 37-year-old chronic thief living on the margins, Gillan said.
Neither was Willie Lloyd Stevens, another Gillan client, a sex offender who failed to re-register on his birthday. Nothing in Stevens' life had changed: He'd had the same address as always, had reported to his parole officer as always, and his employer testified he'd been a model employee, Gillan said.
A prosecutor's tool
District Attorney George Kennedy says he ``vigorously'' opposes any change to the law. Originally, he thought the law was unfair because the "third strike" could be any felony. He's since changed his mind. " `Three strikes' the way it is now, works." It's given him the tools to go after people who have ``a long and demonstrable pattern'' of violence, he said. Like Miller, who he contends would have committed more violent crimes.
The district attorneys in San Francisco and Los Angeles have made it a policy not to charge a "third strike" unless the crime is a violent one.
We've built something on the order of 20 new prisons in the past decade, and the corrections officers have the strongest union in the state.
That hasn't stopped the Xiana Fairchilds of the world from getting snatched off the street or the Christina Williamses from disappearing while walking their dogs.