The three strike law applied to any person convicted of a serious felony who previously has been convicted of a serious felony in this state or of any offense committed in another jurisdiction which includes all of the elements of any serious felony, shall receive, in addition to the sentence imposed by the court for the present offense, a five year enhancement for each such prior conviction on charges brought and tried separately (California Criminal Law). For example you have committed an arm robbery and was caught, that is one count and you have serve your time for that. Later on you did another offense. This time you did beat someone up with a deadly weapon, that’s another count goes toward you. Same as last time, you have done your time and ready to get out. On yo

ur last time out you committed another felony but this time it’s your third strike, since it’s your third strike judge just sentence you 25 to life. Even though your third offense time severs should only like 4 year but since it’s your third strike judge give you 25 year. Some argue that this law is unfair and cruel because they get charge for a strike that is not serious and none violent. For example, Mr. Andrade stole videos worth 153.54 dollars from two K-marts and wound up with a sentence of 50 years in prison with no possibility of parole. Usually, state law treats a petty theft (anything under 400 dollar) as a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail. But Mr. Andrade had been convicted of several prior offenses, all nonviolent. The prior record enabled his theft to be upgraded to a felony under the California penal code. I thought this was very odd and unusual, shouldn’t three strike law be stricter on serious and violent offender rather than petty theft crimes? In other case, Gary Ewing was sentenced for the admittedly more serious theft of $1,197 worth of golf clubs from a pro shop. Because he had four previous convictions for serious or violent felonies, he was sentence upon conviction in the golf club theft to life imprisonment (Post Gazette). This case make more sense than the first case I had mention because Gary Ewing had committed some serious offense so it’s ok to put him away but for Mr. Andrade to be put away for life because of petty theft, I think the three strike law kind of went out of hand with that case.

I think that the idea of the three strikes law is really good if they just focus on those who repeat more serious crime rather on those who commit non-serious crime. The intent of this law is to lock up serious repeat offenders longer. Don’t waste the prison space and taxpayer money on those non-serious offenses such as petty theft, better yet put them on proba

Some topics in this essay:
Criminal Law, Strike Law, Gary Ewing, strikes law, strike law, petty theft, k-12 education, Post Gazette, it’s third strike, third strike, serious felony, committed serious, it’s third, California Criminal, funding strikes law, surely don’t, committed serious offense, third strike judge, serious violent, convicted serious felony,