I understood how it generally worked prior to class, but today I learned a subtlety of the law I hadn't previously realized: the California law has a very weird order of operations. The law states that after two serious felonies (serious felonies being a specific class of crimes), any felony conviction can trigger the three strikes law, thus guaranteeing a prison term of 25 years to life.
That means that you could have the following situation: Criminal Unlucky commits two burglaries, then commits a theft. Criminal Lucky commits a burglary, a theft, and then a burglary. (Under California law, burglary is considered a serious felony, while theft is just a regular felony.)
In my sample situation, Criminal Unlucky will trigger the three strikes law, but Criminal Lucky won't. These guys committed the exact same crimes! Yet they'd get very different sentences.
Regardless of whether three strikes in general is a good idea or a bad idea, that disparity doesn't seem right.
4 comments:
You've hit on one of the worst aspects of that law. I opposed that aspect of it at the time it was passed. And, unfortunately, it was passed by statewide initiative, which means it can't be amended except by a statewide vote. Or by court decisions, which is also not the most desirable way to make laws.
I preferred an approach that gave a specific emphasis to tougher sentences for *violent* crimes.
Bruce Miller
http://journals.aol.com/bmiller224/OldHickorysWeblog
I was pretty horrified when I realized how much order of operations matters. It seems completely counter to what the law is supposed to promote. I mean, if you're trying to reward good behavior and punish bad, wouldn't you think that the guy with the lesser felony would be the one with the lesser sentence?
I had an 'introduction to the law' course while I was taking Engineering. And one of the things the prof told us was: (paraphrasing) "This is not common sense. This is not right and wrong. This is the law."
Fun class tho.
See also: http://www.ng2000.com/fw.php?tp=california
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