3 Strikes Law

Beyond the promise of safer streets and the threat of overloaded courts, Ventura County law enforcement officials say the new "three strikes" law aimed at career felons carries a load of question marks. While prosecutors were weighing the first "three strikes" cases last week, officials disagreed over whether the law--meant to imprison repeat felons for 25 years to life--will reduce crime, hobble the courts or truly deliver justice.

California's "three-strikes" law was approved by voters frustrated with so-called revolving door justice who wanted to put violent career criminals behind bars for years. Under the law, anyone convicted of two violent felonies who is found guilty of a third has to be sentenced to a prison term of 25 years to life. However, the third strike does not have to be for a violent crime.

A Ventura County judge set an Aug. 2 trial date for a Simi Valley man charged with child molestation under the new "three-strikes-and-you're-out law," rejecting a defense argument that the statute was implemented too quickly. The decision by Superior Court Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr. means Henry Diaz, 40, will probably become the county's first defendant prosecuted under the law, which went into effect March 7. Deputy Public Defender Neil B.

A federal appeals court overturned part of the federal three-strikes sentencing law Monday, saying it wrongly requires previously convicted robbers to prove convincingly that they were unarmed and did not injure their victims seriously. The 2-1 ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case from Hawaii, applies only to the 1994 federal law and not to state three-strikes laws, which lack similar burden of proof provisions and are much more widely used.

For Henry Diaz of Simi Valley, the "three strikes and you're out" law was a reason not to go to trial. A 40-year-old three-time convicted robber, Diaz pleaded guilty in Ventura County Superior Court on Tuesday to four felony counts of child molestation. The parolee had faced 70 years in state prison after being charged with nine counts of child molestation for repeatedly having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Deciding the punishment would not fit the crime, prosecutors on Wednesday said that two Ventura County women accused of low-level felony drug offenses will not be prosecuted under the state's tough new "three strikes" law. The women's defense attorney, Timothy Quinn, quickly commended prosecutors for using proper discretion in reaching the decisions.

Criminal defense lawyers around the state are using the "three strikes" law to file long-shot challenges to the death penalty, contending that the new sentencing scheme preempts capital punishment. A motion to preclude a death sentence for an accused triple murderer already has been filed in San Francisco, and defense lawyers elsewhere in the state say they will cite the new law in making similar motions in the near future.

Calling it a wake-up call, activists spoke out last week against the state's new "three strikes and you're out" law, which they say is misunderstood and thus unfairly targets the local community. "I'm here to make sure that people are aware of the trap that exists for minority communities," said Connie Rice of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People's Legal Defense Fund.

About 150 students gathered at a high school here Saturday to debate current events, tackling Tonya Harding and freedom of expression, illegal immigration and California's "three strikes" legislation. They took a straw poll and decided that state Treasurer Kathleen Brown should be the next governor. And they said executions should not be shown on television and declared that the quality of life is declining across the board.

Ventura County prosecutors said Thursday that they are considering filing their first charges under the state's new "three-strikes-and-you're-out" law--against an Oxnard man accused of cultivating seven marijuana plants. Preston A. Shelton, 36, was arrested on suspicion of cultivating the plants only hours after the new law took effect Monday afternoon. He may be eligible for prosecution under the new statute because he has at least two previous armed-robbery convictions, said Chief Deputy Dist.