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Californians will never know whether Proposition 66, a measure to reform the state's "three strikes" law, would have led to the release of thousands of "murderers, rapists and child molesters." But using that imagery in a multimillion-dollar television blitz last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used his unrivaled political clout to persuade scores of California voters to change their minds and vote down Proposition 66 by a 53 to 47 percent ratio. Now, the decade-old fight over the toughest sentencing law in the nation is back to square one. Even critics of Proposition 66 concede the hard-fought campaign is likely to produce reforms to a law put in place after the Polly Klaas kidnapping and murder by felon Richard Allen Davis. "Nobody is under the delusion that because this thing didn't pass, this is going to be the end of it," said Santa Clara County prosecutor David Tomkins, a three-strikes expert who opposed Proposition 66. "This sniping over three strikes needs to end." Schwarzenegger himself said Wednesday that he planned to consult with Attorney General Bill Lockyer and legislators on possible improvements to the law. "If there's something wrong with it you know that needs to be adjusted, then we should do that," he said. Proposition 66 backers argued they were fixing the most unfair aspect of the three-strikes law, which has even divided the Klaas family. California is the only state that permits judges to impose 25-years-to-life prison terms for a non-violent third strike. The measure would have required that only a violent or serious felony third strike could trigger a life sentence. Until recently, polls showed voters overwhelmingly approving the measure. But in what pollsters say was the most abrupt shift in memory on a state ballot measure, the numbers changed dramatically during the last week of the campaign. Schwarzenegger, former governors, the state's prison guards' union and billionaire Henry Nicholas, the founder of the Irvine-based semiconductor company Broadcom, threw their weight and millions of dollars in campaign contributions into defeating the reforms. "We just got carpet-bombed in the last couple of days," said Sandy Harrison, the Yes on 66 spokesman. Prosecutors warned that the law was written so broadly that it could release more than 20,000 felons from state prisons. Proposition 66 supporters said prosecutors were misleading voters with those figures, contending only about 4,000 inmates would be eligible for release. Prosecutors like Tomkins say reforms could be crafted to address the concerns of three-strikes critics, such as by creating a "tiered" system of sentencing for non-violent third strikes that would make defendants eligible for parole in seven years instead of 25. Long-frustrated three-strikes critics say they will keep pushing for change. "We'll just get back on the horse," said Geri Silva, head of Families to Amend Three Strikes. "People really want to see this law reformed." |
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