Californian three Strike law
In 1997, William Anderson stole a dollar in loose change from a parked car. He was arrested and sentenced under California’s voter-approved “three strikes and you’re out” law. Mr Anderson’s two previous convictions of daylight residential burglary in 1985 now accounted for his first two strikes, allowing his petty theft from the car to trigger the hammer blow—the third strike. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison. A number of states in the US have the three strikes law, under which criminals who persistently offend are given increasing penalties. Yet in California there remains one glaring difference that many believe is a catalyst for continued injustice. While the first two strikes must be “serious or violent” crimes, the third strike does not. This discrepancy has allowed criminal prosecutors to press for a variety of life-crippling sentences for the most minor of offences.
I travelled to California to meet a lawyer called Michael Romano, who, alongside fellow attorney Galit Lipa, has established the Criminal Defense Clinic at Stanford University to fight on behalf of the three-strikers. Romano persuaded the Superior Court of California to consider a habeas corpus appeal for Alex Maese, a Vietnam War vet with post-traumatic stress disorder who was sentenced to life for possession of a cotton wool ball containing 0.029 grams of heroin in 1997. To everyone’s shock, the judge overturned the conviction and ordered Maese to be released with immediate effect in 2008.
The impact of the Stanford team has spread through the prison system and the clinic now has thousands of requests for representation. They accept only non-violent cases where minor crimes have been committed in each of the three strikes. Recently, more and more former supporters of the legislation have had a change of heart, says Romano. “We have judges calling us and saying, ‘I sentenced some guy to life ten years ago—I think about the poor bastard all the time. Can you do anything about it?’,” he says.
These portraits show some of the men released following the work of the Stanford Defense clinic.
