Tucson, Arizona  Saturday, 3 November 2001
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/11103NThreeStrikes.html
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court Friday threw out a shoplifter's 50-year sentence under California's "three strikes" law as overly harsh - a ruling that could lead to hundreds of challenges from defendants who received near-life terms for petty crimes.

In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Leonardo Andrade's sentence violated the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

It was the first federal court ruling declaring that California's sentencing law, the nation's toughest, could produce unconstitutionally harsh sentences.

Andrade got 50 years in prison for stealing nine videotapes, valued at $153, from a Kmart. The court noted that kidnappers and murderers could receive less time than Andrade, who had a record of several nonviolent, petty crimes.

"The harshness of the sentence appears grossly disproportionate to the gravity of the offense and the culpability of the offender," Circuit Judge Richard A. Paez wrote.

Had Andrade's prior convictions not made him subject to the three strikes law, he would have faced six months at most.

Andrade's lawyer, Erwin Chemerinsky, said the case could have broad implications.

"This especially opens the door to those whose third strike is like my client's: petty theft with a prior," said Chemerinsky, a University of Southern California law scholar.

Attorney General Bill Lock-yer's office, which defended Andrade's sentence before the appeals court, said the state might ask the court to reconsider its ruling.

California voters and lawmakers approved the three-strikes law in 1994. The law mandates a minimum 25-years-to-life term for defendants convicted of any felony if they have already been found guilty of two serious or violent felonies.



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