Peterson "Death Penalty, OT. Options

[Alison Baker]

Scott Peterson sentenced to DEATH !

[Rgreen914]

demenche914

The "Three Strikes" law was enacted to deal with criminals who repeatedly commit violent or "serious" felonies; who have a prior history of same. Some of us feel it indeed does an admirable job of dealing with habitual violent offenders; by the way, there are many states which also have these "habitual criminal" laws, California's version just happens to be the most famous. Unfortunately, the "less serious" offenders (petty thieves, drug users and dealers, car thieves, etc.), make up a large majority of the prison population and they are painfully aware of the Three Strikes Law and steer well clear of involvement with it. They are, as we say, "doing life on the installment plan". For this group, the Three Strikes Law has no importance as they will never commit a crime that draws them into it's realm of application. In 1977, the California State Legislature passed the Determinate Sentence Law (DSL) which mandates, that except for some serious crimes, the bulk of felony behavior will be punished with a determinate sentence; that means that the punishment for most felonies is a "base-term" of 16 months (possibly 2 years or 3 years depending on other factors). In addition, the state enacted the "work incentive program" ("good time/work time" credit provision), which means that if you work full-time or go to school full-time, stay discliplinary "free" during your incarceration, you will get half-time off your sentence! The number of felony cases continues to flood the court system and with the criminals pretty much knowing the length of the sentence they are facing, plea bargaining is rampant in the system, allowing the criminals to "get away with murder", or more pricisely, a much lighter sentence, but saving countless taxpayer dollars by foregoing a full-blown trial.

Just for your information, outside of every prison in this state, there is a (PLO) Prison Law Office that is manned by a bevy of anxious ACLU attorneys just waiting to sue the state for any- and every-thing that a prisoner says happens! You cannot begin to imagine how many law suits are generated by inmates; many of them are filed by the inmates themselves because they are allowed, by law, almost unlimited access to the prison "law library". If you pay taxes in California, you would be appalled by how much of you taxes go to fighting inmates' law suits, most of them frivolous!

As for the Department of Corrections' retirement plan [more precisely, California Public Employees' Retirement System (CALPERS)], the rate of payment is based on at least 20 years' service and being at least age 55 at time of retirement. For every year of service, you will receive 3% of your salary (at time of retirement) X the number of years of service up to a maximum of 85% of you salary; if less than 55 at time of retirement, you receive less than the 3%. This is same retirement formula used by almost every law enforcement agency in this state!

Ron