Posted on 03/06/2003 6:59:25 PM PST by HighWheeler
Editorial Friday, March 7, 2003
THE U.S. SUPREME COURT'S 5-4 DECISION UP- holding California's "three-strikes" law was predictable.
Especially on criminal matters, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who's considered a frequent swing vote, leans conservative. Writing for the majority, she said that the court should defer to California's legislature, finding that putting Gary A. Ewing away for 25 years was not excessively objectionable. Mr. Ewing's last offense was stealing golf clubs, but his record was lengthy and even violent; he was not just a petty thief stealing to eat. Justice O'Connor also was moved by the impressive fact that four years after California enacted its "three-strikes" law, recidivism among parolees dropped by 25 percent.
The government's interest in deterring crime is a legitimate reason for taking a hard line with offenders, she said.
Justice Stephen Breyer disagreed, calling Mr. Ewing's sentence "virtually unique" in its harshness. He said his analysis showed that the sentence was two to three times the amount of prison time that other jurisdictions would have imposed for the crime.
The majority's decision comes awfully close to being a blanket endorsement of any "three-strikes" law. In a case involving a second defendant whose sentence the court also reviewed, a heroin addict got 50 years for stealing video tapes.
In making that call, the court pretty much said that short of cutting off a thief's hands, states have almost complete discretion in setting punishments. (If the thousands it will cost to keep that offender in prison were spent on his addiction, you have to wonder if he wouldn't be able to kick his habit.)
As appealing as many think "three-strikes" laws are, they have serious disadvantages unrelated to whether they're constitutional. They're tremendously expensive, for instance, especially knowing that most offenders "grow out" of a life of crime. Under these laws, some very old men are will be living in prison long after they couldn't hurt anybody if they wanted to.
In the initial rush to adopt such hard-and-fast rules, some police officers even expressed concern that suspects who were facing a "third strike" would be more violent, hoping to avoid capture if they thought they were facing a decades-long sentence.
But the best case against "three-strike" sentences is that justice ought to be individually tailored. Society should want judges to be judges--taking one case at a time and having to account for their decisions. Not all defendants are created equally good or bad, and many can and do turn around their lives. Others should not get out even after 25 years.
In saying that states can be exceedingly harsh, a divided court is giving lawmakers tremendous latitude. That puts a special burden on policy makers to be smart, not just reflexively punitive.
Name even a single criminal law that creates criminals and at the same time doesn't identify the same criminals, and vice versa. You can't because to create or to identify them in both cases is to define them, by their actions, including the act of possession, such as possession of stolen goods.
go ahead. Name even one law.
I'm getting the idea that you are him.
For some crimes (real serious stuff, like armed robbery and up to and including rape/murder) I'm in favor of 'One strike and we execute you'.
The recently enacted CA law prohibiting the possession of so-called 'assault weapons'.
You can't because to create or to identify them in both cases is to define them, by their actions, including the act of possession, such as possession of stolen goods.
What is criminal in the 'act' of possessing a semi-auto rifle with a pistol grip & a flash hider? -- Please, - define the criminal behavior, in detail, - as you see it.
go ahead. Name even one law. I'm getting the idea that you are him.
Done. -- Now, lets see that 'hammer' you were boasting about.
BS. - You asked the question - 'what law?', I answered.
The CA law at issue does not identify or define ~any~ criminal behavior. --- Thus, I then asked you:
"What is criminal in the 'act' of possessing a semi-auto rifle with a pistol grip & a flash hider? -- Please, - define the criminal behavior, in detail, - as you see it."
The law as passed by the legislature, defined the criminal acts, created the criminal by the possesion, and the identification of the criminal by the act of possession.
Exactly. - The bad law created a 'crime' and the 'criminal'.
That was my original point. Thank you, -- you just dropped the 'hammer' on your own toe, by being unable to define/identify the 'criminal act'.
Do you have trouble seeing that the creation of the criminal and the identification of the criminal are the same thing?
Not at all. - You just won't admit that prohibitions on property create crime. --- They are the 'bad law' you insist does not exist.
"Sheesh", indeed.
The law as passed by the legislature, defined the criminal acts, created the criminal by the possesion, and the identification of the criminal by the act of possession.
-HW-
You are defending a gungrabbing so-called 'law' that directly violates more than just our 2nd amendment. -- Why is that?
- Has your fervor to 'hammer' an argument deprived you of common sense?
When three strikes came into being the gov (wilson) was competing with the legislature to see who was tougher on crime. Wilson asked for the most strict three strikes law and said he would sigh it. (There was a three strikes all felonies law in the mill by referendum.) Wilson got the bill Calif has, where the first two strikes must be violent felonies and the third strike may be any felony.
Thus we get cases where a perp has severely beaten people for his first two stikes and then get the third stike for mugging a pizza delivery boy of his pizza and change. IMO the problem is to determine whether the guy risked serious injury to the delivery boy if the boy resisted, Who knows. The answer in Calif is that the DA and judges demanded some discretion over the application of three strikes or not. The state has seemingly very high discretion even when the law is very clear. If a perp gets three strikes for the theft of golf clubs, you can be sure that the DA and judge agreed that the perp should get this punishment. Likely they ruled that there was a risk of a more serious crime, such as the theft being done while the owner was nearby. If they did not want to use the law, they have the option of setting three strikes aside and just prosecuting as is. So this is what the Supreme Court upheld, and it seems reasonable to me.
FWIW, what California is doing to gun owners is much more serious, and is one of the reasons I no longer reside in California.
Don't think so. It is an inference taken from crime statistics. The majority of serious crime is committed by young males under the age of twenty-five. By age 50 less than 2% of them commit crimes. It why you so rarely hear of 70 year olds arrested for rape, murder, or robbery. Spend a little time on www.fbi.gov and you might learn something.
State legistlature passes LAWS and if they are NOT against the STATE'S CONSTITUTION or the US CONSTITUTION then they HAVE THE RIGHT TO IMPOSE whatever sentence that is in the LAW. The USSC ruled in essence that the 10th Amendment applies and that it is a state matter.
You bet. That's why a lot of two time losers have left California, as they know what awaits them....Hopefully many of them headed eastbound.....
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