California attorney general gives up three-strikes case

Sac Bee ^ | 4/29/04 | David Kravets - AP

[NormsRevenge]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - California will not appeal a federal court's decision overturning a three-strikes sentence of 25 years to life imposed on a repeat shoplifter.

Last week, ruling 2-1, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the 25-year term handed to a California man convicted of stealing a $199 VCR violated the Eighth Amendment constitutional ban on cruel-and-unusual punishment. The appellate court said the punishment did not fit the crime even though the U.S. Supreme Court last year upheld the same sentences for two California shoplifters.

The appeals court said the life sentence triggered under the three-strikes measure was unjust and more severe than a sentence for "murder, manslaughter or rape." The San Francisco-based appeals court said the Supreme Court's precedent did not apply to every third-strike defendant convicted of a felony.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer agreed in a decision announced Thursday.

[NormsRevenge]

Meanwhile, the state prisons are bursting at the seams...

[mc6809e]

The solution is to create a new crime called recitivism.

Three convictions makes you subject to a charge of recitivism. Now you're not being punished for stealing a VCR.