The L.A. Times recently featured an article on the renewed debate over the "Three Strikes Law," documenting a recent case a person was sent to prison for life for committing petty theft.
Scott Andrew Hove was arrested on November 15, 2009 for petty theft after concealing in his jacket approximately $20 worth of wire and gloves used for his welding business and walking out of a Lake Elsinore Home Depot store. He was charged under the Three-Strikes Law, convicted at trial, and, on August 19, sentenced to life in prison by Riverside County Judge Albert Wojcik.
The "three strikes law" in California is a topic of widespread misunderstanding, even amongst the most educated people. First, people assume that it applies only to violent crimes, as it wouldn't make any sense to put someone in prison for the rest of their lives for stealing beer on three different occasions when they were 19 years old. This is only partially true. In fact, it is entirely possible to have never committed a violent crime, but to be sentenced to life in prison under the three-strikes law for walking out of a gas station with one un-paid-for can of beer at age 19.
Part of the reason for the widespread misconceptions about the three-strikes law is because is was election-marketed as applying only to violent offenders, both in 1993 and again in 2006 when it was on the ballot for reform. This is one of the drawbacks of modern political discourse, especially in our direct-democracy dystopia of California. People, even educated people, tend to believe a reader's digest summary version of each political debate, having learned by experience to fully trust or believe no one. They hear both sides, they hear the extreme arguments, assume the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and what gets lost are the details, i.e., the actual truth of the details of a law which is then implemented and applied in a way that would surprise and anger the people who thought they supported it.
Here is the truth about the three-strikes law. The word "strikes" is not wholly a baseball metaphor, as it refers to certain crimes in the Penal Code that have been designated as "strikes." Crimes, like the ones you would expect, such as murder, rape, inflicting great bodily injury, child molestation, etc., are obviously strikes. For many of these, life sentences are already mandated, however, so they are not particularly relevant to the day-to-day application of the law, as there are very few convicted murderers who will ever have the chance to re-offend outside of prison walls.
But other crimes are also designated "strikes," such as spray-painting gang-related graffiti or making a verbal threat to someone. And the law is not a three-strikes law, it is a TWO strikes law. If a person commits an offense designated a "strike" on two different occasions after they turn 16, then any other crime they commit, regardless of whether it is a strike or not, allows them to be sentenced to life in prison under the three strikes law. This was the case with the aforementioned Mr. Hove, who was arrested, tried and convicted of stealing just that $20 worth of Home Depot merchandise, yet found himself sentenced to life in prison because of his prior record.
The three-strikes law does not take all discretion away from prosecutors and judges, however, meaning that had Mr. Hove been sentenced in San Francisco Superior Court, instead of in Riverside County Superior Court (a.k.a. the "Fourth Reich"), he would probably be, at this moment, free to repay his debt to Home Depot and continue his welding business instead of being provided for the rest of his life by the taxpayers of California with shelter, health care, food, etc. Nonetheless, this is how the Three-Strikes law is all-too-often used, and is arguably not at all what the California electorate thought they were voting for.
