‘Three Strikes’ Bill Clears State Legislature

Casting aside questions about cost and effectiveness, the Senate gave final legislative approval Thursday to a bill that would impose life sentences on habitual felons, and Gov. Pete Wilson said he will sign it as early as Monday.

Once he signs the “three strikes and you’re out” measure, it will become law immediately. The bill approved Thursday is virtually identical to a proposed voter initiative that may qualify for the November ballot.

In a separate action, the Senate delayed action on four other bills, all of which would mandate life sentences for three-time losers. The bills will return to legislative committee, where they will be put into an anti-crime package, a process that could take a month.

Despite the similarities of his initiative and the bill the Senate passed, Mike Reynolds, the proponent of the “three strikes” ballot proposition, vowed to press ahead to qualify the measure for the November ballot by submitting 600,000 signatures by Monday, the legal deadline.

“We are going to submit. There is no question about it,” Reynolds said by phone from Fresno, where he works as a photographer, and where his 18-year-old daughter, Kimber, was shot to death in 1992 by a repeat felon.

Although he had said he would not push his measure if the Legislature approved the bill and it was signed into law by Monday, he said he concluded after Thursday’s action that legislators could weaken it when they work on the other bills later.

The one way to ensure that third-time felons are imprisoned for life is for the electorate to approve his initiative in November, Reynolds said. Public opinion polls show the “three strikes” initiative is supported by more than 80% of the voters.

“They’ve held (the four other bills) like a trump card. They’ve forced our hand,” Reynolds said.

The Senate approved the legislation by Assemblymen Bill Jones (R-Fresno) and Jim Costa (D-Fresno) on a 29-7 vote, despite contentions by opponents that it could plunge the state into a long cycle of deficit spending. Many county prosecutors also favor one of the alternative bills because they believe they would be more effective than the Jones/Costa bill.

“There is no military solution to the deepening quagmire of crime,” Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) said, adding that the measure will be fiscally debilitating and will “harden our souls.”

Sen. Lucy Killea, an independent from San Diego who also voted against it, compared the politicians who were supporting the measure to lemmings, and said that the bill’s passage means “we can’t call ourselves leaders.”

The construction cost of housing the additional felons who will be imprisoned by the Jones/Costa bill--and the initiative if it passes--will be almost $22 billion, spread over the next 30 years. By then, the annual additional cost of operating the 70 new prisons to house the additional prisoners will be $5.7 billion, the Department of Corrections estimates.

Several proponents, including most Democrats who voted for the measure and some Republicans, acknowledged it will cost billions in years to come, and may not significantly reduce crime.

“I’m going to vote for these turkeys because my constituents want me to,” Sen. Leroy Greene (D-Carmichael) said.

The vote came even as the politics of the anti-crime movement took an ironic twist. Joe Klaas, the grandfather of the murdered 12-year-old Polly Klaas, lobbied to kill the Jones/Costa bill. It would cost far too much, Joe Klaas said, and, because of ambiguous wording, might endanger the death penalty.

Polly’s kidnaping and murder last year shocked the public and gave momentum to Reynolds’ signature-gathering effort to place his “three strikes” initiative on the ballot.

Joe Klaas and the Polly Klaas Foundation have embraced a competing bill by Assemblyman Richard K. Rainey (R-Walnut Creek). To give Rainey’s bill added political power, Rainey and his backers renamed the measure the Polly Klaas Memorial Habitual Offender Reform Act.

Rainey’s bill would impose sentences of life in prison without parole for people who commit a third violent or serious crime. It lists 15 violent crimes, such as murder, rape, armed robbery and some types of arson.

The Reynolds-backed bill headed to the governor’s desk would impose life sentences with the possibility of parole after 20 years for criminals who have committed two violent or serious crimes and then commit any felony on their third offense. There are more than 500 felonies on the books in California.

The Jones/Costa bill, and the initiative it reflects, would result in more than 100,000 additional prisoners serving long prison terms by 2001, according to the Department of Corrections. Those additional felons would be in addition to the 170,000 expected to be imprisoned under the current laws.

The California Department of Corrections estimates that 20 additional prisons, each costing $500 million, will have to be built by the turn of the century to house the additional felons who would be imprisoned under the bill.

Those 20 prisons would be in addition to the 28 that exist already and the 12 that must be constructed by 2000 to house the prison population expected under current laws.

Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) said he intends to work out details next week about how the remaining “three strikes” bills will be handled. The process should be completed by the end of this month, he said. He added that whatever emerges will not water down the Jones/Costa bill.

“Maybe when (the Jones/Costa bill) is behind us, we can move on to a more comprehensive discussion of crime in a less impassioned or less political atmosphere,” said Lockyer, who voted for the measure even though he opposes much that is in it.