LOS ANGELES, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- A poll released this week indicated that Californians have grown increasingly uneasy with life sentences handed down for petty crimes and are prepared to pass a proposition changing the state's strict "three-strikes" law over the objections of equally-appalled prosecutors and law-and-order politicians.
A Los Angeles Times survey published Thursday found overwhelming support for Proposition 66, which would require that the fateful third strike that can bring a career offender a 25 years-to-life prison term be a violent felony rather than a lesser offense such as shoplifting or some other ridiculously petty crime.
If the poll findings hold up on Nov. 2, it will mark a step back from the hard-nosed premise of the three-strikes law that made it clear as possible that crime doesn't pay, but which also resulted in horror stories of hapless and relatively harmless petty criminals being thrown into the black hole of the Department of Corrections for the remainder of their days.
"I think to do a crime and be sequestered away for life as a result, it should be for something very serious," Jubal Kahn, 27, Hollywood, told the Times.
Kahn was one of 1,345 respondents to the poll that was conducted statewide Oct. 14-18 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The poll found a resounding 62-percent of the voters agreeing that Prop 66 should be reformed compared to the 21 percent who were opposed to any changes in the law and 17-percent who were still undecided.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger threw his 11th-hour support against Prop 66 this week, telling a Southern California audience that the law as it currently stands "keeps serious offenders off the streets and behind bars where they belong."
California's voters held that same view when they passed the three strikes law overwhelmingly a decade ago. However, the law has been under consistent challenge from the get-go from civil rights proponents and activists in minority communities who fretted that aggressive police and prosecutors were decimating an entire generation of young Latino and African-American men.
Democratic Gov. Gray Davis vetoed a bill in the Legislature that would have authorized a study of the effects of the three strikes statute in 1999 in a move that showed the political volatility of the measure in a state that was racked by gang violence in the 1980s and 1990s.
The law was next contested in the courts where it was argued that the threat of a life sentence represented a violation of constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year took the federalist route and put an end to the challenge by ruling that sentences for violations of a state law -- cruel and unusual or not -- were the business of the state and not the federal courts.
The ruling came in a case in which one Gary Ewing struck out for trying to swipe three golf clubs from an El Segundo pro shop in 2000. Supporters of the tougher version of three strikes argued that while life in prison may seem a bit over the top for a golf club thief, they noted that Gary Ewing was just the kind of person the for which the law was aimed.
Ewing, it was pointed out, actually already had four strikes against him during what had been a long history of scrapes with the law, including some serious felonies. It was these types of repeat offenders who, under the three strikes policy, would be taken off the streets before their criminal tendencies could escalate into violence in which someone could conceivably get hurt.
Californians have also been reminded that the three strikes law originated with the 1993 brutal kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klass by a repeat sex offender who would have been locked up long ago had three strikes been in existence at the time opf his earlier offenses.
"How many chances do we give a criminal to comply with society's laws?" Shasta County District Attorney Jerry Benito said in a statement opposing Prop 66. "Most of society lives their entire lives complying with the law. Is it that much to demand that felons not re-offend? At some point, we must say, 'Enough is enough.'"
Some people, however, simply have a knack for trouble even though they are not necessarily violent or even capable of pulling off a serious crime. It is these this hapless population of offenders that the reforms seek to protect.
"It made no sense for me get a life sentence for petty theft, and it makes no sense for anyone else, either," said Pam Martinez, whose third-strike sentence was commuted by Schwarzenegger on technical grounds earlier this year.
Under Prop 66, various crimes would be downgraded so that they would not be considered a so-called third strike. Inmates who were convicted of minor crimes would be allowed to seek a new sentencing hearing that would adjust their sentences, and in some cases allow for their release under time already served. Analysts estimate the change would lower prison populations and result in significant savings from the cash-strapped state's corrections budget.
The crimes stricken from the third-strike roster, however, include some offenses that are indeed serious, including certain types of burglary and arson, consorting with street gangs and intimidating witnesses.
"Proposition 66 also limits the counting of felony strikes to one strike per prosecution, instead of the current one strike per conviction," Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney Steven Moawad pointed out in an anti-66 press release. "This means that a serial killer, like 'Night Stalker' Richard Ramirez, who murdered 19 people, would have only one strike for his murders."
A Maryland organization called ThrowAwayTheKey.com said Wednesday that by its calculations based on the expected early release of 26,000 felons and the Justice Department's figure of a 67-percent re-arrest rate, Prop 66 would mean another 17,000 Californians would be victimized by crime if the measure passed.
But if the results of the Times poll are any indication, Californians appear willing to take that risk rather than send more shoplifters away for life.
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