![]() ![]() He's dealt marijuana in sufficient quantity to get arrested and prosecuted by the federal government twice. Merritt points out that Andrade has a long list of crimes on his rap sheet: “He's been a thief, he's been a burglar, he's crept into people's homes. We are punishing him for failing to heed the lessons of his prior history,” says Grover Merritt, the California prosecutor leading the fight to keep Andrade in prison. “It's not cruel and unusual because we are not punishing him for what upfront might appear to be a minor crime, the theft of the video tapes. However, the state of California disagrees. "If any punishment is grossly disproportionate, it's stealing $150 worth of video tapes and getting 50 years to life in prison.” For at least a century, the Supreme Court has said that grossly disproportionate penalties violate the cruel-and-unusual-punishment clause," says Chemerinsky, a law professor at the University of Southern California. “The eighth amendment to the constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. So what constitutional issue is involved in this case? “The law was about putting the Richard Allan Davises behind bars for life, not the shoplifters,” says Erwin Chemerinsky, Andrade’s lawyer. But California is the toughest law in place. Today, more than half the states have some kind of three strikes law. Dianne Feinstein were strong supporters of the law. Davis had a long and violent criminal record, and officials like Sen. The law’s passage was triggered by the vicious murder of Polly Klass, 12, who was snatched from her home, raped and strangled to death by a drifter named Richard Allan Davis. Violence was on the minds of California voters when they overwhelmingly passed the three strikes law in 1994. In fact, Andrade didn't carry a weapon with him for either burglary. His first two strikes were for home burglaries that were committed back in 1983. ![]() They call it a “wobbler”: So long as the first two crimes were clearly felonies, then a third crime – be it stealing a bike or a pizza, as happened to others, or videos, can send a person to prison for 25 years to life.Īndrade got the 25 years doubled for two cases of shoplifting, which became his third and fourth strikes under California’s law. It happened because California is the only state where a misdemeanor crime can be made into a third strike. I didn’t fight with them or anything else.”Īndrade was sentenced to life in prison. And they asked me if I had any concealed tapes,” he says. “On the way out of the store, they approached me. He tried to steal the videos and was caught by security guards at both stores. So he went to a Kmart, and a couple of weeks later, visited another Kmart store down the road. Army veteran and lifelong heroin addict, says he wanted videotapes as Christmas gifts for his nieces. “That’s what I believe I should be doing for petty theft. Was it a just sentence? “For a petty theft, it carries, maximum three years,” says Andrade. "But I wasn’t aware that for that little mistake I was going to receive a 25-to-life sentence.” Now, you have to pay for that crime, for the mistakes that you make in life," says Andrade. Under his sentence, Andrade will be 87 before being eligible for parole. “Do I deserve to be locked up for the rest of my life, because a certain judge feels that's what he deserves?” I'm really not a bad person once you get to know me,” says Leandro Andrade, a 44-year-old convict who may make legal history. ![]()
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