Discretion in ‘Three Strikes’ Case Upheld

An appellate court ruled Monday that an Orange County judge acted within the law when he spared a “three strikes” defendant a life prison term by reducing forgery convictions to misdemeanors that each carried only a year in jail.

The decision is said to be the first by the state Court of Appeal in Santa Ana on the controversy over how much discretion judges may exercise in sentencing defendants convicted under the state’s 1994 “three strikes” law, which mandates sentences of 25 years to life for certain repeat offenders.

A three-judge panel ruled that Orange County Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Rackauckas Jr. did not overstep his powers when he reduced defendant Mark Steven Hoopaugh’s felony pleas--for forgery and possession of forged checks--to misdemeanors carrying a maximum term of a year in jail. Hoopaugh, now 29, admitted two prior burglary convictions.

The Santa Ana panel followed the lead of three previous California appellate court decisions holding that judges have the power to reduce felonies to misdemeanors in “three strike” cases.

The decision was the first to address any of 53 appeals filed by the Orange County district attorney’s office challenging local judges who have reduced third-strike felonies to misdemeanors. Prosecutors, arguing the law requires judges to mete out the stiff sentences in all third-strike cases, said the ruling will be appealed to the California Supreme Court.

“We’ll be able to say we took this as far as we could, and we took the position that we believe the people wanted,” said Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. E. Thomas Dunn Jr., who is handling the appeals.

The appeals challenge the sentences of 25 separate Orange County judges.

Dunn said the impact of the decision would be difficult to gauge until it was appealed to the higher court. Orange County prosecutors have a similar appeal pending before a second three-judge panel in Santa Ana.

The state Supreme Court has refused to reconsider the earlier appellate decisions upholding judges’ authority to reduce third-strike convictions.

In coming weeks, the high court is expected to rule on a different issue: whether the “three strikes” law bars judges from tossing out a defendant’s prior convictions to avoid prosecution as a three-time loser.

The Supreme Court is deciding whether a San Diego judge erred in dismissing two prior convictions against a third-strike defendant who ultimately was sentenced to six years in prison for cocaine possession.

The “three strikes” law, approved amid concern that repeat offenders were getting off lightly, has been cited as a cause for backlogged courts. And some judges have complained the law forces them to dole out sentences that are too severe for the crime at hand. In one of the more controversial cases, a Los Angeles man was sentenced to 25 years to life for stealing a slice of pizza from some youngsters.

At the heart of the Orange County ruling was whether lawmakers intended to strip from jurists overseeing “three strikes” cases the same discretion that allows judges to reduce felonies to misdemeanors for scores of other crimes. Prosecutors argued the law supersedes all other sentencing laws and bars the use of such discretion in three-strikes cases.

But the Santa Ana court, echoing the earlier decisions with little discussion, said the law’s wording provided “clear legislative intent” to preserve judges’ authority.