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'Three Strikes' laws are unjust

A common legal anecdote is the old moral conundrum of whether it is fair to punish a man for stealing bread for his starving family. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court indicated it might do just that when it refused to hear the appeal of California prison inmate Michael Riggs, who was sentenced to 25 years to life for stealing a bottle of vitamins from a local grocery store. Riggs, who was homeless at the time of the 1995 theft, wrote his own appeal from Corcoran State Prison, where he is currently serving his term. This unusually severe sentence is a result of California's "three strikes law," which allows a judge to give a life sentence to any person convicted of two prior felonies (violent or not), even if the third conviction is a misdemeanor, as was the case with Riggs.

California is not the only state that has such laws - nearly half of the states have some form of "three strikes" legislation. In Alabama several years ago, Douglas Gray, a husband, father and Vietnam veteran was sentenced to life without parole for buying marijuana from a police informant. Gray had been arrested for a few petty crimes - crimes which did not even carry a prison sentence - 13 years earlier. Cracking down on crime has become a battle cry for politicians nationwide as they face off in the public spotlight, eager to win votes and pad their legislative resumes. It seems many lawmakers are either blind or indifferent to the human and ethical consequences of their bold posturing.

The Supreme Court is supposed to be a check on these zealous legislators and governors, shooting down laws that compromise justice for publicity. Only Justice Stephen Breyer voted to hear Riggs's appeal; four votes are required to grant a hearing. Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and John Paul Stevens wrote an opinion piece that stated that the case raised "obviously substantial" issues but then voted not to hear it. Riggs's punishment is clearly disproportionate to his crime - it is one a California court called "a petty theft motivated by homelessness and hunger." The three strikes laws seem to call for what the Eighth Amendment forbids as "cruel and unusual punishment." It is the responsibility of the Supreme Court to hear and decide upon constitutionally questionable legislation.

The act of writing specific sentencing requirements into law treads on dangerous ground. The judiciary and legislative branches are separated for a reason - those who make the laws should not be the same as those who interpret them. But "three strikes" laws, as well as mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which have gained quite a bit of popularity recently, tend to impede on the discretion of judges and limit their ability to evaluate convicts on a case-by-case basis. These stringent sentencing laws are at least partially responsible for the staggering rise in the U.S. prison population, which is now at 2 million.

The rush to imprison as many people as possible for as long as possible is an alarming trend sweeping through state governments - and the highest court in the land is doing nothing to stop it. The process of sentencing should be one of assessing the seriousness of the crime and determining, among other things, the relative danger that the convict poses to society. The conversion of sentencing - normally the privilege of an impartial judge - into a political tool represents a disquieting shift in the balance of power in our country and has turned a starving man in search of nutrition into an ominous symbol of our waning rights.

02-03-99