Posted on 09/12/2006 3:49:04 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Could the Governor's loose lips spring a man from prison?
The National Latino Congreso held in Los Angeles last week may have laid out a blueprint for how Arnold Schwarzenegger could recoup some of his lost ground with Latino voters. The day before conference officials disinvited the Governor from giving a speech at the conference because of racially questionable comments, Congreso participants unanimously approved a resolution calling on Schwarzenegger to free a Latino prisoner imprisoned under California's three-strikes law for cheating on a Department of Motor Vehicles exam.
The city of Richmond and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors have also passed resolutions calling on Schwarzenegger to free Santos Reyes, who has spent the last six years in Folsom prison. As governor, Schwarzenegger has the authority to commute sentences and issue pardons.
On Wednesday, Reyes' supporters will rally outside of the U.S. District Court house in Los Angeles. The court is reviewing Reyes' case upon orders from the Ninth District Court of Appeals, which last year that the sentence may have violated Reyes' Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment.
Reyes' supporters are hoping these resolutions and rallies may convince the governor that freeing Reyes would be a good public relations move. A Field Poll release on July 25 found Latinos favor Schwarzenegger's Democratic opponent, Phil Angelides, by a 58 percent to 22 percent. Schwarzenegger received 31 percent of the Latino vote in the 2003 recall.
Schwarzenegger's troubles began on Friday when the Los Angeles Times published taped comments he had made earlier this year ...
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The movement to free Reyes has become a focus of two other hot-blooded--or at least highly outspoken--Latinos, Green Party politicians Matt Gonzalez and Peter Camejo. Gonzalez, who lost a closely fought San Francisco mayor's race against Gavin Newsom in 2003, is legal counsel to the Free Santos Reyes organization.
Camejo, who is making his third run as the Green Party candidate for governor, is serving as a spokesman for the organization. He said the Reyes case represents a key opportunity for Schwarzenegger because the injustice of his sentence is closely tied to Reyes' ethnicity and legal status. For instance, Camejo said that Reyes had been living and working productively in the U.S. for two decades, but could not get a driver's license. He had a roofing business with a cousin who had could not read English. The pair decided to have Reyes take the written exam so the cousin could drive the truck they used.
"Like millions of undocumented, he had to have a driver's license because if he gets stopped, he loses the car," Camejo said.
The Reyes' case has drawn the attention of anti-three strikes activists because his supporters say it is a prime example of the law being used to give long sentences to offenders who pose no public threat.
Donna Warren, Green Party candidate for Lt. Governor and a board member of Families to Amend California's Three Strikes (FACTS), said that when three strikes opponents were looking for a case to use to illustrate problems with the law, Reyes' quickly filtered to the top. For starters, she said, then-LA District Attorney Gil Garcetti chose to take what would have normally been a misdemeanor with a six-month maximum sentence and instead pursued a felony perjury charge in order to get a third strike on Reyes. Garcetti, Warren charges, was prosecuting "every black and brown person they could get their hands on" under three strikes.
Reyes first strike consisted of stealing a boombox out of a house in 1981 when he was 17. His second strike came five years later when he was convicted of robbery. Prosecutors said Reyes threatened someone with a roofing knife during that crime, something Reyes has denied. He then had no offenses for the next 11 years, a period in which he worked steadily, got married and fathered two children. At no time, his supporters note, did he ever actually attack anyone.
Numerous polls have shown the California's three strikes law has lower support among Latinos than whites or Asians, though African-Americans have consistently been the least supportive of the law. The most outspoken three strikes reformer in the California Legislature has been a Latina, Sen. Gloria Romero. In late July, Romero said that she and Los Angeles DA Steve Cooley would likely push try to qualify a three strikes reform initiative in 2008.
How supportive Schwarzenegger will be--or can afford to be--remains to be seen. In 2004, he came out against a three strikes reform, Proposition 66. This initiative was widely criticized as being badly written; Cooley and several other noted three strikes reformers also opposed it. However, Warren said that Schwarzenegger cited what she claims is a bogus statistic created by the District Attorney's Association: that Prop. 66 would free 26,000 violent criminals. The DA's Association has been one of the major opponents of three strikes reform.
But Camejo believes this may be a case where a Republican could have more leeway than a Democrat.
"Republicans don't have to worry about seeming soft on crime," Camejo said.
Deportation seems like the proper sentence to me.
"Like millions of undocumented, he had to have a driver's license because if he gets stopped, he loses the car," Camejo said.
Third strike.
I hope Arnold doesn't cave.
Among the opponents of such laws is the famous/infamous Robert Bork. But I can hardly blame CA. staties for supporting the only thing that is likely to take lots of illegals out of the population.
It's a sad day when politicians start pandering to ethnic and racial groups by distributing get out of jail cards to particular racial groups.
You don't think 26 years to life is a bit extreme, given the crime? He's already served 9 years. Why have the state pay to incarcerate him all of those years? He is deportable under the law. Let him out and send him back to his country of citizenship.
ping
This is a misapplication of the three-strikes law.
He should never have been charged at all, and he should not have served even a day of jail-time. This is almost kafkaesque.
On the other hand, he should have been deported. Period.
(of course, then he could have been back at work the following Monday, and everyone would be happy...)
Its a problem, but a life-sentence for trying to get a driver's license is not the answer. The answer is to secure the border, and deport the people who aren't here legally.
I'd rather see the 3 strikes law enforced, no matter what.
I don't mind seeing this used as a deterrent.
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