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Stanford Law Students Win Release For Third Striker Who Stole Food From Church

By Jeralyn

Gregory Taylor was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for stealing food from his church. It was his "third strike" under California law.

Stanford University Law School's Three Strikes Project, which is dedicated to representing offenders sentenced to life under California's harsh three strikes law, filed a habeas petition for him.

A California judge yesterday ordered Taylor's release, reducing his sentence to 13 years...time served. His prior offenses:

He was convicted of third-strike burglary due to convictions of robbery twice in the 1980s, once for stealing a purse containing $10 and once for trying to rob a man on the street. He didn't use a weapon in either case, and no one was injured.

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The legalese:

Taylor's attorney argued that the crime was at most misdemeanor trespassing because Taylor thought he had the right to take food, but the judge at the time refused to let him present that argument to the jury.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal upheld that decision, questioning whether a "claim of right" defense could ever be valid and saying Taylor could not have honestly believed he had the right to break into the church. The state Supreme Court ordered the lower court to reconsider the conviction and life sentence.

Students with the Stanford Three Strikes Project say they have identified 400 cases such as Taylor's. They've had several successes. Among their losses:

The Stanford Three Strikes Project recently lost two cases — one for a man who stole a pair of socks and another for a man convicted of having 0.1 grams of methamphetamine, Martinez said.

More than 4,000 inmates are serving three strike sentences in California for non violent crimes.

Past and current Clinic clients have been given life sentences for minor offenses including stealing one dollar in loose change from a parked car; for writing bad checks; and for simple possession of less than a gram of narcotics.

Here are the basics of California's three strike law.

Three strikes laws are expensive, they wastes prison resources on people who don't deserve life sentences, and they seem to be implemented in a racially discriminatory manner.

In 2004, ten years after the law was enacted, statistics showed:

One quarter of California prisoners are serving life terms under the three-strikes law, at a cost so far of about $8.1 billion. More than half that amount was spent to warehouse offenders whose third strike was not a violent crime.

California voters had a chance to reform the law in 2004 with Proposition 66, which would have limited application of three strike laws to cases where the third strike was a violent offense, and the effort failed. Supported by California's powerful prison guard union, opponents relied on dubious claims that "hardened criminals" would receive "get-out-of-jail-free passes."

Richard Temple, a political consultant who ran the No on 66 campaign, noted that every campaign "needs a good message, money and a good message carrier.''

All three came together in late October, when Orange County billionaire Henry T. Nicholas, Schwarzenegger and the state's prison guards union all agreed to contribute big bucks and Schwarzenegger agreed to star in a commercial. Another ad featured John Bunyard, an inmate nicknamed the "Nob Hill Rapist," who the proposition's opponents argued would be eligible for release from prison under Prop. 66.

In May, the New York Times Magazine had this analysis of California's law and reform efforts. It refers to another chance Californians may have to reform the law via a ballot initiative... in 2012.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 17, 2010 (boomark / email).