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Three Strikes Reform on California Ballot

The devil in California's current three-strikes law is in the details. So says the New York Times in an editorial today urging California voters to approve Proposition 66, limiting the third strike in three strikes cases to violent or serious offenses.

In marked contrast with the federal government and the 24 other states that have three-strikes laws, California does not require the third offense to be a violent, or even serious, crime to draw an enhanced sentence of 25 years to life. How prosecutors apply the law varies from county to county. But all too often, people get life sentences for stealing spare tires or T-shirts, or for possessing small amounts of narcotics. According to the Department of Corrections, the last crimes committed by more than half of California's 7,000 third-strikers were nonviolent.

In a deplorable 5-to-4 ruling last year, the United States Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the law. It refused to see anything cruel and unusual about sentences of 25 years without parole for a man who stole three golf clubs from a pro shop and 50 years for another man who stole children's videotapes from a Kmart store. The court's myopia effectively tossed the responsibility back to California voters because, as a practical matter, the State Legislature lacks the political will to act.

While not a perfect fix, the new initiative, Proposition 66, would at least restrict third-strike treatment to serious and violent felons. Repeat offenders convicted of new crimes like pinching videotapes could still get longer sentences, but no longer life behind bars. Disappointingly, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger opposes the reform, arguing, even in the absence of convincing evidence, that approval would flood California streets with violent criminals.

Voters would achieve at least two positive things by approving Proposition 66: fairer sentences, and big savings off the state's bloated bill for the long-term incarceration of the wrong people.

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