Cases
- On November 4, 1995, Leandro Andrade stole five videotapes from a K-Mart store in Ontario, California. Two weeks later, he stole four videotapes from a different K-Mart store in Montclair, California. Andrade had been in and out of state and federal prisons since 1982, and at the time of these two crimes in 1995, had been convicted of petty theft, residential burglary, transportation of marijuana, and escaping from prison. As a result of these prior convictions, the prosecution charged Andrade with two counts of petty theft with a prior conviction, which under California law can either be a felony or a misdemeanor. Under California's three strikes law, any felony can serve as the third "strike" and thereby expose the defendant to a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
- Kevin Weber was sentenced to 25 years to life for the crime of burglary (previous strikes of burglary and assault with a deadly weapon). Prosecutors said the six-time parole violator broke into a restaurant to rob the safe after a busy Mother's Day holiday, but triggered the alarm system before he could do it. When Weber was arrested, his pockets were full of cookies he had taken from the restaurant.
- Gregory Taylor was serving a 25 years to life sentence for trying to break into a soup kitchen in 1997 when he was ordered to be released by Judge Peter Espinoza of California Superior Court in 2010.
- Santos Reyes in California committed a burglary as a juvenile with no jury trial (strike one); the second strike was a robbery which didn't involve injury to anybody; after ten years had passed without incident, Reyes was convicted of perjury for submitting a false application while under oath and, as a result of the three strikes law, he was sentenced to 26 years to life.
- In 1996, Issac Ramirez stole a VCR, worth $199, from a Sears in Los Angeles, CA. Walking out of the store in daylight, he was promptly caught and arrested. Having previously been charged with two other shoplifting offenses, this offense was Ramirez's third strike, and he was sentenced to a prison term of 25-life for his crime. While in prison, Ramirez studied California state law, as well as Federal law, and filed multiple appeals to his sentence. Finally, in 2002, a Federal Court ruled in favor of his appeal, that his sentence was in violation of the 8th Amendment of Cruel and Unusual Punishment, and ordered Ramirez be set free.
Read more about this topic: Three Strikes Law
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“I have always felt that the real purpose of government is to enhance the lives of people and that a leader can best do that by restraining government in most cases instead of enlarging it at every opportunity.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“In the beautiful, man sets himself up as the standard of perfection; in select cases he worships himself in it.... Man believes that the world itself is filled with beauty—he forgets that it is he who has created it. He alone has bestowed beauty upon the world—alas! only a very human, an all too human, beauty.”
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“And in cases where profound conviction has been wrought, the eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly drunk with a certain belief. It agitates and tears him, and perhaps almost bereaves him of the power of articulation.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)