If Andrade’s sentence were allowed to stand, the appeals court said, he “would not become eligible for parole until 2046, after serving 50 years, when he would be 87 years old.”
:smack: CAT ON THE ENTER KEY!
Humblest Apologies.
We’ll try again.
[url=http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030305-104854-3230r]Here’s the UPI Article
The Supreme Court has upheld California’s Three Strikes and You’re Out law. They were ruling on two cases regarding two guys who were given hefty sentences for small crimes.
Seems that these two guys were put away for 25-life for petty shoplifting. Now, granted that these guys don’t seem too bright. They both subscribe to the “stuff things down my pants” technique of shoplifting.
However, how can this not be considered to be “grossly improportionate” to the offense? Sure, the state legislature has the power to make its own laws, but these laws have to conform to the Constitution.
To me, it seems obvious that this rule was a marketing ploy, and that if it wasn’t for baseball, the rule wouldn’t exist. Why 3? Why not 4? Or 5? or 18? It’s completely arbitrary.
Furthermore, isn’t it unamerican to put people in jail for future acts that they might commit?
These guys each had “three prior serious or violent felony convictions.” They knew what the penalty would be for committing a felony in California. As the saying goes, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
The point is that the crime they did - stealing video tapes and golf clubs - doesn’t warrant a 25-life sentence. Assuming that they have committed “three prior serious or violent felony convictions,” we can also assume that they have already been tried, convicted, sentenced, and released for these previous crimes.
1 Strike - hey, everyone has a lapse of judgement
2 Strikes - how could the same thing happen to the same guy twice?
3 Strikes - now you have a trend
Here’s a crazy idea. Don’t commit any crimes! it’s not like you’ll die without tapes and golf clubs!
I don’t understand what you’re complaining about. The crime they committed was not “stealing video tapes and golf clubs” but “committing another crime after having already been convicted and sentenced for two previous serious crimes”. How many times do you think they should be victimize people, hop through the revolving door, then come out and do it again? If someone refuses to live an honest life after two stints in prison, even knowing full well that any conviction will likely result in serious punishment, it’s pretty clear that they’re not going to be rehabilitated and so need to be kept away from those of us who can manage not to commit a constant stream of crimes.
Baseball.
If it’s Constitutional, I have no problems with the 3 strikes law. Sure, it’s an arbitrary number - but it’s really not that hard to not commit 3 felonies.
Almost 35 years with zero felonies here, and I’ve had no problems whatsoever.
It is, of course, pointless to have an arbitrary rule if you are not going to follow it rigorously. If not rigorously enforced you have to actually think about stuff–not the sort of things legislatures are good at and certainly not what they will trust courts to do. Allowing discretion in sentencing presents a danger that there will not be a “correct” result in every case. Better to have a hard bright line than to allow reason to creep into the thing. We will not permit decisions on a case by case basis.
You can have my capricious sentencing law when you pry it from my cold dead hands. To the barricades!
The statutes like this that I am familiar with require two previous, separate trips to a penitentiary - and that is something of a feat.
It seems that most people find it easy not to commit any felonies at all.
Justice.
And they do. As you just said, the Supreme Court upheld them. Therefore, they do conform to the Constitution.
- Rick
[quote]
From Riboflavin
How many times do you think they should be victimize people, hop through the revolving door, then come out and do it again?
Our justice system is based on the theory that people are punished for crimes they commit, and hopefully rehabilitated. The punishments are made in proportion to the seriousness of the crime. This “3 strikes and you’re out” rule can be justified in two way:
1- Stealing golf clubs or videotapes is worth sentencing someone to 25-life.
2- The long sentence is justified to prevent these people from committing crimes in the future. They’ve broken the law several times in the past, and now we’ll stop them from committing whatever crimes they may commit in the future.
Our system is not based on stopping people from committing crimes they may commit at some point in the future. Lenin, Stalin, Mugabe, Tito, Kim, Mao, Hitler, Nero, and dozens more dictators and tyrants have believed in locking people away for crimes they may commit in the future.
That is a path we must not walk down. Remember what the road to hell is paved with.
Our justice system is based on the theory that people are punished for crimes they commit, and hopefully rehabilitated. The punishments are made in proportion to the seriousness of the crime. This “3 strikes and you’re out” rule can be justified in two way:
1- Stealing golf clubs or videotapes is worth sentencing someone to 25-life.
2- The long sentence is justified to prevent these people from committing crimes in the future. They’ve broken the law several times in the past, and now we’ll stop them from committing whatever crimes they may commit in the future.
Our system is not based on stopping people from committing crimes they may commit at some point in the future. Lenin, Stalin, Mugabe, Tito, Kim, Mao, Hitler, Nero, and dozens more dictators and tyrants have believed in locking people away for crimes they may commit in the future.
That is a path we must not walk down. Remember what the road to hell is paved with.
Justifications for punishment include deterrence, retribution, and rehabilitation. A “three-strikes” law looks at a criminal and realizes that previous attempts to punish him have failed. These laws then ratchet up the available punishment range both to punish the criminal in particular and to attempt to deter others from the same behavior. Preventing future crimes is a side effect, rather than the central purpose. People sentenced under these laws have shown that they won’t play by society’s rules. Society reponded by declaring that the criminals may no longer play in society.
That’s a claim by you, not an objective fact, the courts don’t seem to agree with your claim, and ‘crime’ should be plural. Do you have any justification for this claim, or are you simply going to repeat it?
False dichotomy. I justified it in a different way, therefore your statement above is false.
Cite, please. And whatever you cite to justify your claim above, be sure that it also explains how the ‘danger to himself or others’ justification for locking up an insane individual fits with it.
Non-sequitor. Relate the three-strikes laws to these people with an actual argument instead of just saying some names of Bad People, otherwise you’re just demonstrating the intellectual bankruptcy of your position.
Your argument rests on an initial unsupported (and at odds with the Supreme Court) assertion by you on the appropriateness of the sentence, an unsupported (and probably unsupportable, but I’ll give you a chance to back it up) assertion by you about the basis of the US justice system, a false dichotomy about how the 3 strikes laws can be justified, and an out-of-the-blue mention of multiple dictators with no argument connecting them to the 3 strkes laws. Your argument is flawed, to say the least.
I’d say that the appropriateness of the punishment is determined not by any quantitative standard, such as the value of the things stolen, but by the subjective revulsion of the people who voted in the Three Strikes law which is inspired by the repeat offender. We (as a people, not me personally) are offended and repulsed by the notion that any one should be able to walk around free after committing three crimes.
As for what I really think, if you want to send a third strike offender to prison, I have no problem with that, but I still think twenty-five to life is too much for shoplifting. I’d be more comfortable if the sentence were proportionate to what the normal penalty for felony shoplifting is: for example, if the regular sentence is three years, the third striker could be sentenced to three times that, or nine years.