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Three Strikes Law - Page 3

The supreme court just struck down mandatory sentences. I wonder what effect this will have on the 3 strikes laws.

This is applicable to Federal Courts, but they already struck down the rulings for a State Court before this one.

Law Strikes Three

CONSERVATIVES TO PITCH THREE STRIKES CRIME BILL

The federal Conservative government is planning to table a bill in the coming weeks that will make it easier to label criminals as dangerous offenders after a third serious conviction.
Ref. https://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/20...toews-bill.html

Three Strikes Law History & Civil Business Politics

The Three strikes law and mandatory sentencing has had many serious, unintended consequences. This usually happens if politicians use slogans instead of thought, and do not study consequences.

First of all, all American Indians living on reservations are under Federal jurisdiction, so all of their crimes, no matter how minor are considered as federal "strikes", and the federal Three Strikes Laws were the first in the country.

As far as mandatory sentencing goes, many violent offenders have been released early because a lot of prison space has been taken by non-violent offenders with mandatory sentences. Some non-violent offenders such as con-men and certain white collar criminals should be kept off of the streets, but they are not the ones who have statutes for the mandatory sentences. Now some of the ones serving mandatory sentences should be kept locked up for a long time, but they are in the minority.

Basically we get the laws that the politicians that we put into office give us, and many of them, although charismatic, no more qualified to write laws than the average person on the street.

Page 3 Law Strikes Three

Politicians do not read drafts of law before passing them. This is true for the US senate. I was watching Farenheit 9/11 again recently, and a US senator, during an interview, stated that they never read every draft that is slated in the senate but they vote them into law.

They rely on the legal minds; and if the legal minds says it sounds good then they say lets pass it. After the 9/11 attack, there were laws that were drafted and passed overnight. Albeit, to satisfy the masses.

The Three Strike Law is one such law that was passed "overnight," I would say. No thought was given as to the ripple effect of its introduction. The rights of persons, the category of the crimes committed, the process of justice and, more so, the social rehabilitation of offenders in the penal system.

The Three Strike Law is a bad idea. We say we want repeated offenders of the streets. I am sure we can find more creative ways of curbing the behavior and activities of repeat offenders.

Edited: dbrose on 6th Dec, 2006 - 9:54am

Law Strikes Three

We can all find issues with the 3 Strikes Law. When quickly ushered into effect, any 3 felonies would get you put away for a long time. This meant that some people that got caught with too much "pot" a couple of times and later convicted of armed robbery ended up as the poster children for the repeal of the law. The law was definitely flawed, no doubt. This is why parole boards can correct this problem for those caught in the above type situations and politicians can ammend the law to correct it for future issues. Again, anyone with a little foresight should have been able to see these potential issues, so big shame to the politicians that didn't do their homework. However, their job is to appease the masses. That is why we put them in office.

We always are focusing with the problems with the law and not the reason that the masses were appeased. For far too long, criminals with increasingly violent convictions were receiving short sentences and released back onto the streets only to commit another crime. Politicians, Judges and Parole Board Members were crucified when a early released violent criminal killed once set free. The same media that cries for its repeal also asked how could our system let that guy back out of jail when we new he was becoming or already was violent. It basically came back as the system killed the victim just as much as the criminal did.

I say fix what holes we have with the law, but don't kill the spirit of the law. Interestingly enough, California voted to leave the law as is for now in a recent referendum. It is easy to find some issue to show how the law is too harsh, but this is interesting point I found out about the ammendment 66 had that law passed:

One of the biggest arguements for the ammendment 66 was that it would save money. In this case, if we wanted to 3 strike Ramirez, it would have taken 3 trials. Of course, there is no court that would have given Ramirez a light sentence, but there are many examples of life long criminals with violent past that were let out early and commited another or their first murder. IMO, the law should be ammended to a degree, but not repealed. Mandatory sentencing has far more negetive issues associated with it than 3 strikes. Personally, whatever law keeps lifelong violent criminals in jail and off the streets gets my support and I am happy to have my tax dollars funding it.

Three Strikes Law

California Supreme Court makes it harder for three-strike prisoners to get sentence reductions. California's top court decides judges have wide latitude to refuse to reduce three-strikers' sentences. Source 3v.

Three Strikes Law - Page 3

While some people who get caught the third time will get and deserve a stronger sentence there will always be exceptions to the rule. The fact that many do not look to see what all the circumstances are leads to some people being in prison longer when they really do not need to be.