Readers Take Their Cuts at ‘3 Strikes’ Law : Perhaps there are better candidates for Exhibit A, such as that ex-con with the long rap sheet who was arrested in the mugging of a homeless man for 50 cents.

Nelson Fay of Encino writes:

Until (recently) I thought it was quite an honor to consider myself your pen pal. Now I’m not so sure. Allow me to elaborate a little, please. I do not want to be classified in the same category as Brian Simpson. I guess if you care, you’re going to have to find another pigeonhole for me or for him.

You see, he may write a good letter. He may also have a high degree of creativity . . . and a massive amount of gall . . . but in all seriousness, he is still A BUM!

“Bum” is such a vague term. To be more precise, Brian Simpson is a burglar.

Or at least was. These days, Brian Simpson, a thrice-convicted felon mentioned in two recent columns, is serving a well-earned prison term of six to 12 years. He might consider himself lucky. Now that the harshest of the so-called “three strikes and you’re out” sentencing measures is California law, a felon with a similar record might be facing life imprisonment, even though their crimes suggest a desire to avoid violence.

Simpson has sent me about a dozen letters, from which I’ve quoted a few paragraphs. But to give such a felon even this tiny, well-filtered forum is to invite all kinds of interesting reaction. It would be fun to invite these people to the same party. Or maybe not.

What, I wonder, would the man from North Hollywood who recommends the death penalty for habitual offenders have to say to the Granada Hills woman who knew a polite, teen-age Brian Simpson, long before his taste for crystal methamphetamine started to rule his life. She was amazed, upon reading the first column, what had become of that nice boy. Now she corresponds with him and expresses faith that Simpson may yet redeem himself.

A few of these readers would have a good excuse for missing this party because, like Simpson, they are incarcerated. It feels a little strange receiving complimentary mail from Leavenworth.

Exactly how this column came to the attention of this convicted kidnaper is a mystery to me. Still, he wanted to let me know that he and other cons figure that “three strikes” would indeed make it more likely for streetwise two-time losers to eliminate witnesses to avoid getting caught.

Another letter came from an inmate who has a long rap sheet but now claims to be awaiting trial for a crime he didn’t commit. He says he has AIDS.

A third came from a man at Calipatria State Prison, serving 20 years to life for second-degree murder. He writes:

If I were released today, I would never be back to this dreadful place . . . What does a person do when he has understood what he did wrong? How can I prove to the world that I won’t be back to this? I should be locked up, but for how long? Am I supposed to get better by being locked up with people who did wrong also? The only thing that does is create better ways to commit crime and gain more connections. Anyway, I just thought you would like to get an opinion from someone with a lot of time to do.

It isn’t easy to muster sympathy for second-degree murderers.

Yet it’s odd that, even as American society cries out for tougher punishment, it produces juries of a more lenient bent. Damian Williams, Lorena Bobbitt and the Menendez brothers--all have benefited from this paradox.

All of which lends credence to a point made by J. Thomas Johnson of Winnetka:

. . . the idea that punishment can “fit” the crime is even more silly and incoherent today than it was when W.S. Gilbert mocked it in “The Mikado” over 100 years ago . . . What the (three strikes) initiative represents is a new way of looking at crime. The type of crime is irrelevant. The measure treats a whole laundry list of crimes as identical, not identical in form but identical in effect: they one and all have the effect of making civilized people feel unsafe and insecure in their persons and property. And Harris’ pen pal, Brian Simpson has exactly that effect on anyone made aware of his crime spree. Which is why Simpson is an argument FOR the three strikes proposal, not an “exhibit A” against it . . .

Perhaps there are better candidates for Exhibit A, such as that ex-con with the long rap sheet who was arrested in the mugging of a homeless man for 50 cents. No doubt other candidates will emerge who are less deserving of life imprisonment than Simpson.

And while some bold readers propose death factories as the cost-effective answer to crime, Niel Pendleton of Claremont, a retired American Baptist minister with a Ph.D. in American history, is fond of pointing out the experience of New York state some 60-odd years ago when, fed up with crime, its lawmakers adopted mandatory life sentences for four- time offenders.

The law was adopted in May, 1926. What happened? Confusion prevailed in courtrooms. Some juries, appalled by manifest injustice of the law, required ever higher standards for convictions. When one woman was given a life sentence for shoplifting, public clamor to repeal the law became overwhelming. When the law was overhauled in 1932, mandatory life sentences were eliminated.

And for all this trouble, Pendleton points out, there was no decrease in crime.

There’s no promise that California’s experience in the 1990s will be anything like this.

Still, history is interesting.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Readers may write Harris at The Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, Ca . 91311.