The Murders of Roxanne and Polly

They lived, and died, a continent apart--one on the Florida peninsula, the other in a Northern California village. One was a woman in trouble, a prostitute and unwed mother of three. The other was a precocious 12-year-old who began her last night of life giggling at a slumber party.

Roxanne Hayes had little in common with Polly Klaas, with a few brutal exceptions. Both were murdered: Hayes last Wednesday in Tampa; Klaas four years ago in Petaluma. And if the Florida allegations prove correct, both were killed by ex-convicts who had walked from California prisons simply because, under the protocol of determinate sentencing, a calendar indicated it was time.

The murder of Klaas by Richard Allen Davis, a violent criminal many times over, led to passage of California’s so-called Three Strikes law. The Hayes murder--allegedly committed by Larry Singleton, a name once as notorious in California as that of Davis--no doubt will be memorialized in time with some sort of anti-crime legislation. When it comes to closing barn doors after horses have fled, tough-on-crime legislators have no match.

For the present, however, this latest homicide mainly has stirred collective guilt. “Blame it on California” was the apt headline in the Oakland Tribune on Friday. A vexing question envelops the case: How could someone like Singleton, convicted nearly 20 years ago of raping a Modesto teenager and hacking off her forearms, have been set loose to attack again? “It makes no sense,” said Gov. Pete Wilson. Ah, but once it did.

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Once, a little more than 20 years ago, the power to release prisoners in California rested in large measure with parole boards. Which is to say, with people. Sentences for almost all crimes were open-ended; car thief or rapist alike would enter prison facing a few years to “life.” For an inmate to go free required a determination from the Adult Authority that rehabilitation had occurred.

This system had some natural flaws. Humans do make mistakes. Criminals can be masters of the con, sweet-talking their way to freedom only to commit crimes and cause political embarrassment all around. Ideology and racial bias can skew the process, creating a demonstrable potential for unfairness.

And so liberals and conservative lawmakers, coming from different angles of concern, decided to junk the so-called indeterminate sentences. Instead, they would adopt a code of mandatory penalties. The power of parole boards and even judges would be greatly diminished. In effect, the politicians would construct a sort of justice machine, supposedly free of human foible. In effect, the calendar would be put in control of the prison gate.

Now there were doubters. From out of a faded newspaper clipping comes James Enright, an Orange County prosecutor: “Under the old law, the Adult Authority could keep a guy longer if they believed he was dangerous or homicidal. . . . They or the Department of Corrections have in-house testing procedures that are used to classify these guys. But now, if my reading of the new law is correct, these types of persons must be released. I don’t see how the new law is going to protect the public from these guys.”

Guys like Richard Allen Davis.

Guys like Larry Singleton.

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In some ways, what has transpired in the years since exceeded even the most dire warnings. Legislators have not been able to resist tinkering with their justice machine. Every election cycle, every high-profile crime produces new anti-crime bills aimed at salting away more and more criminals for longer and longer stretches. The prison population has exploded from 20,000 to 180,000, leaving the prisons--despite a budget-busting build-up--crammed to almost twice their capacity.

Inevitably, the laws of physics must be served. “For every bad guy you parade in through the front door,” said a frustrated former official of the parole board, “you have got to find a way to let someone else out the back door.” And so, through a convenience called good time credits, most California prisoners now serve only half their terms. It’s either that or go broke building even more prisons.

All of this, of course, predates Three Strikes, which will make these seem like the good old days for California prisons. Looking back, determinate sentencing can be seen as a Three Strikes forerunner. Both “reforms” were founded in fear, frustration and a loss of faith in human judgment and the power of accountability.

Sadly, though, the witless calendar also can make mistakes--the last, tragic link between Roxanne Hayes and Polly Klaas. Would Davis or Singleton, saddled with open-ended sentences, have passed the test of human judgment? Would they have been deemed fit for release? The answer in hindsight might seem awfully clear, but who can say? Such questions never came up. The calendar was in control.