Let the punishment fit the crime

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld California's three-strikes law for repeat criminals, which is considered the toughest in the nation.

Petty criminals should take heed. The ruling means even people committing minor crimes -- stealing video tapes and golf clubs, for example -- could go to prison for life.

In the 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the most controversial and archaic provisions of California's so-called three-strikes law do not violate the Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

The examples of who the ruling affects aren't exaggerated. Look at 37-year-old repeat offender Leandro Andrade, who stole five videotapes valued at $84.

His sentence? Fifty years.

Andrade, a Vietnam War veteran, previously had been convicted of burglary and twice for selling marijuana. Those are serious crimes, but they're not violent. He isn't the only example.

Gary Albert Ewing was noticed by a clerk at an El Segundo, Calif., golf shop trying to make off with golf clubs stuffed down one pant leg. He was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, with no possibility of parole before 25 years.

Granted, Ewing had more than a dozen prior convictions, but the sentence he received for stealing the golf clubs is more the norm for someone convicted of first-degree murder, not shoplifting.

Sometimes laws created with good intentions must be changed. Dissenting justices in this high court test made good points. Justice Stephen Breyer said the Ewing case is a rare example of a sentence so out of proportion to the crime that it is unconstitutional.

"Ewing's sentence is, at a minimum, two to three times the length of sentences that other jurisdictions would impose in similar circumstances," Breyer wrote.

Breyer felt so strongly that he read a summary of his dissent from the bench, a step justices usually save for cases where there is strong, ideological disagreement.

We agree such examples sound excessive.

According to published reports, there are 7,000 people who have been sentenced under the California third-strike law, including more than 300 who committed offenses similar to those for which Ewing and Andrade were sentenced to long prison terms.

It might be time to revisit the law. Voters no doubt were concerned about crime rates when they voted for the law in 1994, which was in part a response to the killing of schoolgirl Polly Klaas by a paroled repeat criminal.

It might be time to let voters weigh in again.

If the third-strike law can't be repealed, then there may be another option. The law gives judges and prosecutors the right to disregard previous criminal convictions of three-strikes defendants in the interest of justice.

When it makes sense, they should use that discretion. They should also consider what fairness and justice demand.

Let the punishment fit the crime.