Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court upheld a mentally ill man's three-strikes sentence of 25 years to life today for shoplifting two bottles of liquor from a Southern California market, a sentence that a dissenting judge called "barbarous.'' In a 2-1 ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco affirmed a Los Angeles County judge's sentencing of Cornel Ray Joshua, who walked out of a West Covina market with $62 worth of liquor in July 1999. He ran when a store employee approached but was grabbed and pulled to the ground, according to testimony cited by...