Legal Commentary

WA Backing Off From Three-Strikes Laws

By Jeralyn

Washington State is re-thinking its three-strikes laws, particularly for non-violent offenders. Gov. Chris Gregoire was the first Governor in the country to grant clemency to a three-striker earlier this year, and has since added two more to the list.

Fifteen years after voters and legislatures across the country began embracing the three-strikes concept, many states apply those laws more sparingly. Prosecutors and judges often use the discretion provided them to avoid charging a defendant whose past consists of minor robberies or assault convictions with a third-strike offense. Now Washington is taking the extra step of reviewing the cases of some nonviolent three-strikes prisoners and moving to release those, like Dozier, who probably would not face such a severe punishment today.

The Sentencing Project recently released a report on the growing number of inmates serving life sentences. 140,000, or 1 in 11 inmates, are serving life in federal and state prisons. The racial disparity is glaring:[More...]

66% of all persons sentenced to life are non-white, and 77% of juveniles serving life sentences are non-white.

In six states, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota - and the federal government, there is no parole. Life is life, you come out in a pine box.

The report also finds:

The dramatic growth in life sentences is not primarily a result of higher crime rates, but of policy changes that have imposed harsher punishments and restricted parole consideration.

Given the economic cost of incarceration, $20+ thousand a year per inmate, hopefully more states will rethink their three-strike and other draconian sentencing laws and make some revisions.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 11, 2009 (boomark / email).