'3 strikes': Proposed law tries to restore intent

[alp227]

Source: SF Chronicle

As California braces for more budget cuts and moves forward with a plan to reduce its prison population by 33,000 inmates, opponents of the state's "three strikes and you're out" law are preparing to ask voters to make major changes to the harsh sentencing mandate.

Supporters of a proposed ballot measure say it would narrow the three-strikes mandate to what voters wanted all along: a law that keeps murderers, rapists and child molesters in prison for life and doesn't leave low-level, nonviolent offenders languishing behind bars for decades.

The proposed law deals with what opponents see as the most egregious part of three strikes - the provision allowing nonviolent offenders with two previous strikes to be sentenced to prison for 25 years to life for any new felony, regardless of whether the third crime was violent. But unlike previous reform efforts, which have failed, the measure would not allow anyone previously convicted of rape, murder, child molestation or other heinous crimes to appeal their life terms.

It's sure to be controversial, however, because it would allow more than 4,000 felons whose third strike conviction was for a nonviolent crime to ask a court for a new sentence.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/28/MNKM1M267N.DTL&ao=all

[markpkessinger]

1. I'm not sure the provision denying appeals to a certain class of criminals ...

... will pass constitutional muster.

[_eh]

2. I remember hearing about a case where a guy's third strike was stealing flashlight batteries

SOMETHING needs to be done!