Prosecutorial and Judicial Discretion in the Implementation of California’s Three Strikes Reform

• In Event: The Rationales and Goals of Sentencing

Abstract

California’s Proposition 36 was passed on November 6, 2012. This ballot measure made two major changes to “Three Strikes and You’re Out”: nonserious or nonviolent new felonies would no longer trigger sentences of 25 to life, and the law applied retroactively to certain inmates serving 25-to-life sentences for nonviolent, nonserious third strikes, who would be allowed to petition for resentencing as second strikers. This study conducts and analyzed interviews of judges, prosecutors, and public defenders from eight California counties to determine whether and how discretion has been exercised in the implementation of the resentencing process, as well as in the charging and sentencing process for second- and third-strikers after the narrowing of Three Strikes.

Author

• Elsa Chen, Santa Clara University