‘Three Strikes’ Law Increases Burden on Judges, Courts

California’s “three strikes” law has increased judges’ workload and defendants’ demand for trials, according to the state Judicial Council.

In the first half of 1995, Superior Court judges in counties with 70% of the state’s caseload estimated that the new law had increased their workload by more than 10%, the council said Thursday.

Reports from a smaller number of Superior Courts found that defendants facing mandatory sentence increases for second or third strikes were much more likely to go to trial than those charged under other laws.

For defendants not charged with a crime that qualified as a strike, the median rate of going to trial was only 4%, the council said. Defendants facing a second strike went to trial 15% of the time, and those charged with a third strike went to trial 45% of the time.

The law was passed by the Legislature in March 1994 and reenacted as a voter initiative in November 1994.

It requires sentence increases for anyone with a previous conviction for a violent felony or a felony classified as serious, such as residential burglary. A criminal with one such strike must be sentenced to twice the usual term for a second conviction of any felony. One with two strikes faces a mandatory 25 years to life in prison for a third felony conviction.

The sentence increase can be waived at the prosecutor’s request, but appellate courts have disagreed over a trial judge’s authority to refuse to impose the higher term without a request from the prosecutor. The state Supreme Court has agreed to decide the issue.

The Judicial Council said larger courts are more likely to report an increased workload. Courts that handled about half the statewide caseload reported they had fewer courtrooms available for civil trials as a result of “three strikes.”