Crime Victims, Witnesses and Prosecutors Gather for 3-Strikes Forum

Gathered in one room were some of the most impassioned advocates of California’s “three strikes” sentencing law: a girl who watched the abduction of Polly Klaas, the parents of homicide victim Ron Goldman and district attorneys from across California.

Opening a weeklong conference in Ojai, crime witnesses, crime victims and prosecutors gathered to plot how to limit judges’ power to overlook past crimes and grant leniency in “three strikes” cases.

Last month’s California Supreme Court ruling that gives judges discretion in sentencing three-time felons was the main target Tuesday at the annual conference of the California District Attorneys’ Assn. at the Ojai Valley Inn.

Participants, including Gov. Pete Wilson’s legal counsel, endorsed an Assembly bill approved the same day in Sacramento that would severely limit jurists’ ability to substitute the law’s 25-year-to-life sentence with lesser punishment.

“It took years of crime summits, victims’ rallies and tragic incidents like the Polly Klaas kidnapping to galvanize the public’s attention and bring pressure on the Legislature to enact real and lasting reform of our criminal justice system,” said Wilson aide Daniel M. Kolkey, referring to the landmark 1994 “three strikes” initiative.

“We’d like to think that the laws are etched in stone. The truth is that sometimes they simply dangle by a thread,” said Kolkey, reciting a speech prepared for the absent Wilson, who was recovering from throat surgery. “Last month’s ruling . . . [was] a reminder that progress can be swept away in a moment’s notice.”

To illustrate what the high court ruling can mean, Kolkey pointed to a sentence last week in San Jose, where he said a judge spared a cocaine dealer a third strike despite a history of two violent rape convictions and even though he was peddling drugs near an elementary school.

“It’s time we fixed ‘three strikes’ before one of these injustices results in a tragedy that could have been prevented,” Kolkey said. The district attorneys’ association, Wilson and Republican leaders have endorsed a bill by state Senate Republican leader Rob Hurtt of Garden Grove, which the Assembly easily passed Tuesday and the Senate will consider next week.

Under that bill, a three-strikes convict would automatically face the full sentence of at least 25 years if either of the two prior felonies was violent or was a property crime defined in the Penal Code as serious--or if the convict was released from prison less than five years before committing the third felony.

“We need to fix the [three-strikes] problem,” said Gregory D. Totten, executive director of the 2,300-member prosecutors’ association.

Civil libertarians and other critics of the “three strikes” law have praised the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision, saying it gives judges a chance to mete out justice and not blindly impose sentences that may not be warranted.

They note that 80% of the third-strike convictions have been for nonviolent crimes. But supporters of the law say that 70% of such convicts had committed violent felonies previously.

And victims’ rights advocates, such as Oak Park’s Fred Goldman, condemn the high court ruling for ignoring the will of the voters, a record 72% of whom approved the initiative two years ago.

Goldman, whose son Ron was slain with Nicole Brown Simpson in 1994, told about 140 prosecutors that theirs is a justice system despised by the public and in desperate need of reform.

The O.J. Simpson murder trial revealed many of the problems, Goldman said. He castigated defense attorneys, Judge Lance Ito and the jury that acquitted the former professional football star.

“The jails have revolving doors and the courts keep them moving,” Goldman said. “I will never understand how each of you deal with it. You are, in fact, our last vestige of hope.”

Goldman has worked in Sacramento this year as a volunteer supporting bills that would allow non-unanimous verdicts in criminal jury trials and admission of hearsay evidence, such as the Nicole Brown Simpson diary that was ruled inadmissible during the Simpson case.

He also said he favors reforms in how juries are selected and a tightening of privileges granted prison inmates, such as conjugal visits.

“We’re going to let them pass on their gene pools?” he said. “Am I crazy, or is something wrong?”

Many of the prosecutors gave him a standing ovation.

But their greatest praise was reserved for Gillian Pelham and Kate McLean, two pals of Polly Klaas, who were with the 12-year-old for a sleepover when a repeat felon snatched her from her Petaluma bedroom and fled.

Polly’s body was discovered two months later. Robert Allen Davis was convicted of the slaying this spring, and is awaiting sentencing.

The “three strikes” law was passed partly in reaction to the slaying of Polly, whose case prompted outrage nationwide.

Gillian was present to receive the prosecutors’ Witness of the Year award, while Kate’s parents accepted hers because she was at camp.

The two schoolmates of Polly testified in frightening detail about how a bearded stranger with a knife abducted their friend after he bound and gagged them and pulled pillowcases over their heads.

“Their courage was magnificent,” said Sonoma County Dist. Atty. J. Michael Mullins, referring to the girls’ testimony.

“It’s important to remind ourselves what they endure at our request,” Mullins said. “They endure the trauma of the event itself, then we ask them . . . to endure [it] again.”

* MAIN STORY: A1