Judges Hail Ability to Alter Sentences

By ALAN ABRAHAMSON

June 21, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

With quiet satisfaction, judges across Los Angeles County and the state Thursday welcomed back the power to change sentences in “three strikes” cases--a discretion that had been stifled under the 2-year-old law.

But even as gleeful defense lawyers said that thousands of their clients sentenced statewide under the law could conceivably have their terms reviewed, judges said the streets will not abruptly be awash in freed convicts.

“The doors to the jails, to the prisons, are not suddenly going to be open,” said Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William R. Pounders.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Bascue, supervising judge of the county’s criminal courts, said: “There’s not going to be any wholesale reduction of strikes.”

The decision Thursday by the state Supreme Court gives back to judges a tremendous power--the authority to disregard a prior conviction at sentencing “in the furtherance of justice.”

Until Thursday, the law mandated that judges had to impose sentences of at least 25 years to life for any third felony conviction. It also mandated double the usual sentence for a second strike.

Though a third strike can be any felony--such as possession of cocaine--prior convictions must be “serious” or “violent” to qualify as strikes. Such crimes include murder, robbery, kidnapping and burglary.

Traditionally, judges have enjoyed the authority to disregard a prior conviction in a case in which leniency seems appropriate. They lost that authority in strikes cases when the law took effect in 1994; only prosecutors were allowed to erase a strike.

For the past two years, most judges have chafed at the diminution of their power.

“The sound exercise of judicial discretion in appropriate cases is the very hallmark of the system of individualized justice,” said Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Paul Boland, president of the California Judges Assn.

In simple terms, legal experts said, the ruling Thursday merely returns to judges what was long theirs.

The high court’s ruling, said UCLA law professor Peter Arenella, “endorsed a very traditional theme of conventional sentencing law: Judges must have some inherent discretionary power to do justice.”

Many of those already sentenced under the law earned the chance Thursday for a rehearing.

Bascue said he expects a “tremendous number” of requests for resentencing in the Los Angeles courts. According to the state Department of Corrections, Los Angeles County accounts for about 40% of the second- and third-strikers sent to state prison--7,493 of the 17,077 second-strikers in prison as of April 30, 652 of the 1,655 third-strikers.

Among those who vowed Thursday to seek a rehearing was the deputy public defender who represented Jerry Dewayne Williams--who was sentenced in Torrance Superior Court in March 1995 to 25 years to life for stealing a slice of pepperoni pizza. His prior convictions included robbery and attempted robbery. “Mr. Williams would certainly be . . . a prime candidate for reconsideration,” lawyer Arnold Lester said.

Certain convicts will not be entitled to reconsideration.

The high court said that any request for rehearing should be “summarily denied” if a trial judge made it plain at the time of sentencing that he or she had discretion to disregard a strike--but chose not to do so, or said specifically that he or she would not, in any event, move to lighten the sentence.

Around Los Angeles County, several judges--believing that the Supreme Court would rule the way it did--had taken it upon themselves in recent months to go on the record in just such situations.

Last week, San Fernando Superior Court Judge Meredith C. Taylor was reluctant but firm as she sentenced Lawrence Christopher Olin, 38, to 25 years to life.

An admitted heroin addict, Olin was convicted in December of stealing two pairs of jeans, worth $80, from a Mervyn’s store in Valencia. His prior record included other theft-related offenses.

“Were this court to have discretion, and I do not believe that I have discretion, Mr. Olin, it would tug at my heart not to give you a lower sentence than what you have here,” Taylor said.

“But even though I believe very personally that this is grossly disproportionate, I still would feel compelled to give you the term because of the fact that you have those three or four prior serious felony convictions.”

Olin responded: “I just wonder, I don’t know. Has the world gotten crazy or is it just me? ‘Cause I don’t think it’s right.”

Anticipating precisely the decision that was issued Thursday, the Los Angeles Superior Court had developed--and passed around last week to judges downtown--what have been labeled “suggested guidelines” for strikes cases.

Each judge still retains discretion to do as he or she sees fit.

But Pounders, who helped draft them, said they are intended to achieve uniformity countywide.

The guidelines saythat a prior conviction should be eliminated in a third-strike case only if the defendant is charged with a minor felony and has an “insignificant or distant record beyond [the charged] strikes.”

The ruling Thursday also marked the second major decision in less than two weeks to expand the realm of judicial discretion, long a hot topic among judges frustrated by a parade of state and federal laws that have taken away much of their authority in the area of sentencing criminals.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal appellate courts should give wide latitude to judges who sentence in federal cases, a move that effectively validated the 30-month sentences imposed on two police officers in the Rodney G. King civil rights case.

“I think you’re seeing a trend,” said Harland W. Braun, a noted Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer. “You have the courts reasserting gradually their core function, which is sentencing human beings.”

Apart from legal considerations, the ruling also will force judges to once again deal with the political consequences of their decisions. No judge, analysts said, wants to run for reelection while labeled “soft on crime.”

“I think that on average cases . . . judges will use their discretion,” Los Angeles political strategist Arnold Steinberg said. “But I think that on any cases that get media attention or are high profile, judges will be careful.”

Times staff writers Ann W. O’Neill, Jim Newton, Henry Weinstein, Greg Krikorian, Miles Corwin and Edward J. Boyer contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Guidelines for Judges

These are guidelines handed out last week to judges at the downtown Los Angeles courts in anticipation of Thursday’s state Supreme Court ruling. Superior Court Judge James Bascue stressed that each judge now has individual discretion--but that the guidelines are now in force at the downtown courts in hopes of achieving uniformity. They are expected to take effect in outlying courts in the coming weeks.

‘THIRD STRIKE’: A “serious” or “violent” felony

PRIOR RECORD: Two or more strikes

RESPONSE: No reduction

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‘THIRD STRIKE’: A significant felony but not “serious” or “violent”

PRIOR RECORD: Not much more than “two strikes,” which are at least 10 years old

RESPONSE: Consider reduction

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‘THIRD STRIKE’: A minor felony, such as petty theft with a prior conviction, or possession of a controlled substance

PRIOR RECORD: Multiple felony convictions, some of which are recent

RESPONSE: No reduction

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