New Law Puts 30,000 on Brink of Life Term : Crime: Repeat offenders feel the pressure of the ‘three strikes’ rule. But some say it will not be a deterrent.

Joe Lopez does not think of himself as a criminal, even though heroin has put him behind bars nearly a dozen times. Nor does the gaunt, 48-year-old addict think of himself as a violent man, even though armed robbery is his favored technique for scoring the next fix.

“My philosophy is not to hurt anybody,” said Lopez, his wavy hair streaked with gray, as he waited just after sunrise at a methadone clinic on Los Angeles’ Eastside. “But my sickness always comes first.”

A week after the tough “three strikes and you’re out” sentencing law went into effect, Lopez is no longer merely a repeat offender, but one of at least 30,000 “two-strikers” statewide who face life imprisonment if they commit one more felony.

For them, the controversial measure is not a detached debate, one waged over politics, ideology or the mechanics of the legal system. They know this is about their margin for error, that even a nonviolent crime--such as receiving stolen property or forging a check--now could mean growing old in the dank confines of a prison cell.

“Man,” Lopez said, “this is a killer.”

From the housing projects of Watts to the homeless encampments near MacArthur Park, the new law has become a hot topic of street-corner debate, with rage and fear invariably giving way to fatalism.

Few habitual offenders, whether gangbangers or crack addicts, believe that the threat of a life term will serve as much of a deterrent. But they all feel the pressure of suddenly being thrust into the ranks of the unforgiven, aware that a criminal past--even one that has been left behind--can come back to haunt them.

“It’s really depressing living with this over your head,” said Manuel Johnson, 25, an ex-Crip who works in the Beverly Hills office of Amer-I-Can Inc., a self-esteem course for former gang members. “It’s almost like the system is saying: ‘I dare you. I dare you to mess up again.’ ”

Faced with such consequences, a Compton gang member said the kingpins who run his neighborhood simply would employ young followers with clean records to do more of their dirty work. A Venice surfer with convictions for cocaine and methamphetamine abuse expressed dismay at the prospect of life behind bars. Then he casually fired up a joint. And a Downtown panhandler known as Tex claimed he was not inclined to violence, but would rather go on a bloody spree than waste away behind bars.

“I might as well go out as a Trojan,” said the 37-year-old ex-con. “Nobody in their right mind wants to sit between four walls and have someone tell them what to do and what to eat.”

Although a handful of horrific slayings helped generate support for the stringent sentencing guidelines, the large majority of felons affected by the law are not serial killers or child molesters.

Burglars, many of them addicts who steal to feed their habits, are responsible for more than 70% of repeat offenses, according to the state Department of Corrections. Largely because these thieves could be sent away for life, officials estimate that it will cost $21 billion just to build enough cells to house the additional 109,000 inmates expected by the turn of the century.

Robert (Chano) Morales said he could be one of them, if a paycheck does not come soon.

Scanning the traffic that zips past Lucy’s Drive-In on Pico Boulevard, the 24-year-old day laborer waits vainly for a chance to trim hedges or bust concrete, the only legitimate avenue he has found for a tattooed ex-con.

He said he has no interest in reliving the gangbanging days that twice landed him behind bars, first for assault with a deadly weapon, then for armed robbery. But he also says he could cross that line again--if he finds no other way to care for his 3-year-old daughter at their decrepit Westlake tenement hotel.

“If I have to steal food to keep her fed, I’ll do it,” said Morales, his long brown ponytail peeking out of a backward baseball cap. “Whatever it takes.”

Proponents of the measure, signed into law Monday by Gov. Pete Wilson, shed no tears for those who choose to break the law. Crime is out of control, they argue, precisely because California has coddled its criminals rather than removing them from society.

Susan Fisher, whose brother was shot dead in 1987 by an ex-girlfriend who stalked him at his Carlsbad apartment, said the cost of constructing more prisons pales in comparison with the toll extracted on a victim’s family.

“I can tell you from a personal experience what the cost of crime is--the cost is lives,” said Fisher, who serves on the board of the Doris Tate Crime Victims Bureau, an advocacy group named after the late mother of Sharon Tate, the actress killed in 1969 by members of the Charles Manson family.

Critics say that get-tough policies have boosted the state’s prison population by nearly 300% since 1980 while doing little to enhance safety on the streets. Moreover, they add, the brunt of such laws likely will fall on Latino and African American men, who account for 63% of California inmates--and whose bleak economic prospects are seen by some as the driving force behind many criminal deeds.

“We’ve left a Darwinian situation in the inner city and should not be surprised at the results,” said Constance L. Rice, western regional counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Under the new law, each of the first two strikes must be one of 26 violent or serious felonies, which include murder, rape, assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, residential burglary, arson and furnishing drugs to a minor. The third strike can be any of the more than 500 felonies on the books in California.

Had such a law been in place in his teen-age years, Robert Fuiava could be doing life, although he doubts that would have deterred him from opening fire on gang rivals.

Fuiava, a 21-year-old Crip with “Samoa” tattooed across his rippled stomach, packed his first pistol at an age when most kids start Little League. By 14, he had been convicted of seven counts of attempted murder and sentenced to the California Youth Authority. Paroled at 20, he was sent back seven months later when police raided his Compton home in a drug sting.

“When you’re out there getting ready to do a drive-by, you’re not thinking about what’s going to happen if you get caught,” Fuiava, who will be paroled again when he turns 25, said during an interview at the CYA facility in Chino. “You’re thinking: ‘I got to go to the neighborhood, do my shooting and get out and go home and drink a 40 ounce.’ ”

Even those who go straight say the journey is fraught with pitfalls.

It has been six years since Charles (Chopper) Harris was in trouble with the law, the same amount of time that the former gangbanger spent locked up for armed robbery and assault.

Now 27, he makes $600 a week working for P W Construction Inc., which is remodeling apartments at his old stomping grounds, the Jordan Downs housing project in Watts. Dressed in a sleek leather jacket and black corduroy slacks at his 102nd Street office, Harris stands out as one of the community’s success stories, literally helping to rebuild a neighborhood he also helped ravage.

But Harris still worries every day about the unpredictable forces that he says can misdirect a man’s life, especially in an environment where the illegal road to survival sometimes seems to beckon more readily than positive paths.

“My mission is to obey the laws of a free society,” he said. “But down here, the abnormal is accepted as normal and the normal is unspoken of--it’s all backwards. Just walking down the street, you can get caught by that bad influence anytime.”

Drugs catch hold of some people and never let go.

Sitting in a trash-strewn lot near MacArthur Park, a woman stares vacantly at a tiny makeup mirror cupped in the palm of her hand. Her dress is a festive burst of brightly colored blue, yellow and orange squares. But at 33, her brown eyes are sunken and her cheeks hollow, testament to years of using heroin and cocaine.

She figures she has been convicted at least “a couple dozen” times, mostly for robbery and drug possession. But consequences do not matter when the craving calls. She will do whatever it takes to get high.

“Can you help me out?” the woman asks, hoping for a couple of dollars in exchange for sex. “I can help you.”