Wife of a ‘3 Striker’ Felt He’d Be Out

I got a thank-you card in the mail last week from Christy and Dan Johnson. “It looks like Prop. 66 will pass, and Dan will be home for Christmas!” Christy wrote. “He is going to walk through the door to freedom and I am so grateful for all you have done to open that door.”

The door swung shut again Tuesday, when California voters had a late-breaking change of heart and voted down Proposition 66. That left in place the provision that gives prison sentences of 25 years to life for the “three-strikers.”

Actually, I’ve never lobbied to repeal the three-strikes law, but I agree with the sentiment that the third strike should be for serious or violent crimes. What Christy Johnson was thanking me for, I think, was giving her and other activists an occasional platform to air their complaints with the law, enacted in 1994.

Up until the final week or so, it looked like most Californians agreed with her. Then, a late advertising blitz, fueled by Orange County high-tech magnate Henry Nicholas III and delivered on air by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, turned the tide. Once with a 2-to-1 margin of support, the proposition lost 53% to 47% on Tuesday.

On Thursday, Christy Johnson had nearly lost her voice from some mystery ailment, and much of her enthusiasm. Once again, she says, it’ll be Christmas in San Juan Capistrano without her husband, in prison since the mid-1990s after being convicted of drug possession with intent to sell. He faces 28 years to life; the drug charge followed an unarmed robbery charge with multiple counts from the 1980s.

Unlike other states, California doesn’t require that the third strike be for a serious or violent crime. Schwarzenegger’s late campaign raised the specter of “child molesters, rapists and killers” going free, a charge the proposition’s supporters said amounted to scare tactics and a twisting of the truth.

Although Johnson isn’t sure, it’s possible the opposition focused on a section of the proposition that would reduce the number of crimes considered serious or violent.

Still, polls had shown the proposition cruising toward acceptance. I ask Johnson when she started getting bad vibes. “As soon as I saw the ads hit TV,” she says. “I didn’t know they were coming. I was thinking, ‘How can they say that? How can they deceive people like this?’ ”

And when she knew it was over? “About 3 a.m. Wednesday morning. We felt good until about midnight. We came out high at 57%, then down to 55, then 53 and then 50. Someone said, ‘Don’t worry, the last areas will be L.A. and San Francisco.’ We kept waiting for the numbers to come back up and they didn’t. They just didn’t.”

In recent days, she’d prepared for her husband’s return home. He’d need a toothbrush, soap, new shoes, a razor.

Although she says Schwarzenegger pulled off “an incredible deception,” she is somewhat heartened by him saying he’s willing to look at the law with an eye to amending it.

Not that I want to be the bearer of bad news, but I’d remind her that people probably shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for politicians to amend tough crime laws. Still, Johnson says she isn’t feeling hopeless. More like helpless and powerless.

“I was planning on him being here for Christmas, but now I’m not sure he’s going to make it,” she says of her husband. “If they work through the Legislature, that could be next fall before they do anything, and that’s what’s killing me.”

You seldom hear of optimistic inmates, but Johnson says Dan was hopeful that his prison days were numbered. When they talked by phone Wednesday night, she says, he broke down. “I told him not to give up on me now. We’ve come too far.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana .parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.