by Rebecca Saint

Created on: July 13, 2009   Last Updated: July 16, 2009

California's Three Strikes law is among the toughest across the country. District Attorneys are notorious for their aggressive pursuits to have felony cases tried under this statute, meaning that a guilty conviction could result in life imprisonment. When Proposition 184 was passed in 1994, it introduced a complex legislation to California's judicial system. Here is a breakdown of the basic application of this law.

The Basics:
- anyone found guilty of three felony offenses may face a life sentence or more as punishment for their crimes.
- the judge presiding over the trial ultimately decides if a case can be tried under the three strikes law.
- the bill was originally directed to keep repeat offenders who posed a violent threat to society off of the streets for good, but this detail was left undefined when the statute was written. The people of California are now rallying for an amendment to be made for this reason.
- there are no restrictions as to what specific felony crimes can be used to build a three strikes case, and no statute of limitations applies.

The Crime:

There is a wide variety of crimes and circumstances of conviction that allow prosecutors to build a three strikes case in California. Because the law is so vague, there are many instances of people serving life sentences for petty theft and shop lifting. Prosecutors often use this to their advantage when building such a case.

Here are some examples of crimes and convictions that a prosecutor may use to present an argument to try a case under this law.

- any felony conviction can be applied (unsealed juvenile convictions, out of state convictions, old convictions, plea bargain convictions and more). Since statute of limitations laws do not apply to three strikes cases, a prosecutor could potentially use a forty year old felony conviction to support a three strikes trial.

- these cases are build on individual charges, not cases. As an example, it is possible for someone with no previous record to have their first case tried under the three strikes statute if their case involves accusations of three separate felony crimes. If all three counts come back with a guilty conviction, the defendant could face seventy five years or more in prison. Similarly, a life time criminal may find a prosecutor delving into his past to pull felony convictions in order to support having the case tried under Proposition 184,

- the felony crimes used to constitute a three strikes case are not always violent crimes.

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