Day 1 of the Three Strikes Symposium put on by The Center on Media, Crime and Justice was filled with people with strong opinions —both pro and con—on California’s 3-Strikes law.
One of those who spoke was Los Angeles DA Steve Cooley, who has taken heat from conservative quarters over his instruction to his office not to prosecute nonviolent, non serious offenses as third strikes—except in very unusual cases. In other words, don’t try to strike someone out for stealing a pizza.
Cooley repeated that there are occasional exceptions to that rule, which is one of the things he talks about in the short clip above.
I’ll have other video clips and reports from the Symposium tomorrow and Thursday (by which time perhaps everyone will need something to talk about other than cool Navy Seals and the death of Osama Bin Laden).
In the meantime, here are a couple of additional Cooley quotes.
1. About his feeling that mistakes were made in the early, harshest years of 3-Strikes:
A lot of judges are looking back at some of those [3 strikes cases] and saying, “You know what? I’d like to have that one back again.
2. About the fact that, although Cooley opposed the 2004’s Prop. 66 that would have reformed 3-strikes, he was in favor of SB 1642, the 2006 attempt to reform the statute.
“I got behind that with Gloria Romero. I would prefer that it be embedded in law. I paid a political price. Take a look at the last election. My Republican opponents beat me up every day for my stand on 3 strikes. So I sort of paid my price for my reform efforts.”
PS: FOR AN INFORMATIVE AND FASCINATING VIEW OF BIN LADEN’S DEATH, LISTEN TO LAWRENCE WRIGHT ON TUESDAY’S FRESH AIR BROADCAST.
Wright is the author of the Pulitzer prize winning The Looming Tower. He’s a great antidote to the talking heads on cable TV.