LAT: (CA) Voters Favor Scaling Back 3-Strikes Law [View All]

[question everything]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-poll20oct20,1,6007392.story?coll=la-headlines-california

THE TIMES POLL

Voters Favor Scaling Back 3-Strikes Law

A decade after passing strict sentencing rules, most want changes. They also support a stem cell research measure, one of 16 on the ballot.
By Megan Garvey
Times Staff Writer

October 20, 2004


(snip)

The Times Poll, supervised by polling director Susan Pinkus, interviewed 1,345 registered voters, of whom 925 were considered likely to vote in November. It was conducted statewide Oct. 14 to 18. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Proposition 66

The measure to change the state's tough "three strikes" sentencing law was backed by 62% of likely voters in the survey and opposed by 21%, with 17% undecided. The degree of support for the measure has startled many political experts. Just a decade ago, voters approved the three-strikes law with 74% support. At that time, concern about crime was high, and the highly publicized kidnapping and murder of a 12-year-old girl, Polly Klaas, helped generate support for tougher measures.

But most Californians now appear ready to reconsider. The current law allows sentences of 25 years to life for defendants convicted of a third felony — regardless of its seriousness — if they have two convictions on their record for serious or violent felonies.

The new statute would greatly scale back who can be sentenced under the three-strikes law. It would make several changes, including requiring that only serious or violent felonies trigger a life sentence. The changes would cure what critics consider to be the current law's worst extreme: the imposition of sentences of 25 years to life for crimes such as shoplifting or check-kiting.


(snip)