STEVE COOLEY AND THE MATTER OF REFORMING 3-STRIKES
By Matthew Fleischer
No California public official has a more complicated relationship with the state’s Three-Strikes statute than LA District Attorney Steve Cooley
On June 20, The Three Strikes Reform Act officially qualified for the upcoming California ballot. Come November, voters will have the chance to amend the 1994 law that has condemned approximately 3,600 inmates to a 25-to-life sentence for nonviolent, non-serious crimes.
The law was intended to take serious repeat offenders who pick up a third felony charge off the streets for good—the idea being to protect the public from career super-criminals who would likely tresspass again if allowed to go free.
But more than a third of all Three Strikes lifers in the state system fit the definition of “non-violent” or “non-serious”—some of whom have infamously been put away for life for crimes as trivial as stealing a slice of pepperoni pizza. California taxpayers spend more than $100 million annually to house these inmates. When the nonviolent lifers get older and start to need more medical care, the tab goes much higher.
The last time voters had the chance to vote to reform the law—the harshest 3-strikes statute in the nation—was in 2004 with Prop 66. That initiative was on its way to sailing through the ballot process, until a last-minute offensive from Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley, along with then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and others, turned the tide against the initiative in the waning hours of the campaign.
Ironically, despite his role in the death of Prop 66, no California politician is more closely associated with Three Strikes reform than Steve Cooley. Certainly no one in public office has a more complicated relationship with the statute.
In a conversation with WitnessLA, Cooley maintains that he won his first Los Angeles District Attorney race in 2000, largely thanks to his support of relaxed Three Strikes sentencing guidelines.
DEFINING ISSUE
“It was the defining issue in the race,” he says.
Within two weeks of taking office, Cooley stayed good to his campaign promise, crafting a policy that allowed his attorneys to use discretion in pursuing 25-to-life sentences for non-violent third strikers—the first DA in the state to do so.
“It was a very modest reform,” he says. “It was not sweeping.”
According to Cooley, the two most important ethical considerations when it comes to sentencing are evenhanded application and proportionality.
“Two-bit forgery and drug possession could be the predicate for 25 to life—the same sentence we often reserve for murderers,” he explains. “People will only respect the laws when they feel punishment is handed out fairly and proportionally. We’ve had a great deal of success with this policy in LA.”
But when Cooley had the chance to back sweeping statewide reform of Three Strikes in 2004—via Prop 66—he balked. In May of 2004, polls showed that voters favored Prop 66 by a margin of 76 percent to 14 percent. And then came the 11th hour Cooley, Schwarzenegger and company scare campaign.
FLAME OUT
Practically overnight, the polls did a 180. Prop 66 went down in flames, by a 53-47 percent margin.
“I don’t think Cooley being against the bill was a deciding factor,” says journalist and author Joe Domanick, whose book Cruel Justice is considered the authoritative work on the history of Three Strikes laws in California. “The entire law enforcement establishment was against the bill”
Adds Domanick: “The real factor was all the Peace Officer Association money given to Schwarzenegger that paid for a host of devastating, 30-second ads right before the election.”
Cooley is unapologetic about the role he may have played in Prop 66’s demise.
“From a public safety standpoint, 66 was scary,” he says. “Once I crunched the numbers and saw how many people would be released and how quickly, I was strongly, openly, publicly against it. In Los Angeles County alone, 12,000-14,000 would have been released within a year.”
Domanick says those numbers may or may not have been accurate—but they were certainly persuasive to voters.
The author recalls publicly calling Cooley out on his Prop. 66 stance at a USC social justice conference in 2004. In retrospect, however, Domanick says that, although he disagreed with Cooley’s stand against 66, it was not inconsistent with the DA’s advocacy on the issue.
“He’s not against Three Strikes,” says Domanick. “He’s against these provisions that send people to jail for minor crimes. He thinks it’s unjust if it’s applied indiscriminately, and he’s concerned these kinds of laws hurt the integrity of the system.”
And indeed, Cooley didn’t let the issue die.
Two years after Prop 66’s demise, the Republican DA teamed with Democrat State Senator Gloria Romero to craft a more modest Three Strikes reform measure—S.B. 1642–based on the relaxed Three Strikes guidelines he’d developed in the LA DA’s office.
“Three Strikes is a powerful tool for prosecutors if used properly,” Cooley explains. “Prop 66 was a wake-up call: ‘OK, these folks have some arguments that appeal to the public. Let’s take those arguments away.’ In order to avoid a future Prop 66, we had to make people feel good about how Three Strikes was being applied.”
S.B. 1642, however, died in committee.
OBSTRUCTIVE DEMOCRATS?
“The only reason it failed is because five Democrats didn’t vote for it,” Cooley says. “They made a political decision based on their own political careers. It absolutely would have passed otherwise.”
The bill’s defeat marked the end of Cooley’s public activism on the issue of Three Strikes. But his positions have followed him throughout his political career.
His opponents in the 2010 California Attorney General’s primary race tried to “Willie Horton” Cooley by singling out the isolated cases of eligible Third Strike criminals who were given lesser sentences, got out of prison, and went on to commit horrific crimes.
Cooley, however, rejects the notion that his positions on Three Strikes have hurt him politically.
“During the Attorney General race, both of my Republican opponents made my Three Strikes views an issue. I won the primary by a landslide. My adversary tried the same tact in 2000 and I won by something like 28 points.”
Although an ameliorating law has yet to make it to the books, Three Strikes reform is exceedingly popular in California.
A June 2011 Field Poll revealed that nearly 75 percent of California voters favor reform. Field director Mark DiCamillo says his organization won’t take a poll on the initiative itself until the Secretary of State certifies the ballot language sometime next month.
“The last time we polled [in 2011] was a concept test on whether voters agree or disagree on relaxing Three Strikes law as a way of easing prison overcrowding,” says DiCamillo.
“I can’t use that measure to see how they feel about the actual initiative, although those numbers must certainly be encouraging for its supporters.”
Field’s most recent polling numbers, however, are the same as those that buoyed the hopes of Prop 66 advocates in 2004—before Cooley and others stepped in to help shoot the measure down.
TO SUPPORT OR NOT TO SUPPORT? (OR IS THAT EVEN THE QUESTION?)
When WitnessLA spoke to him last week, he played coy about his support for the current initiative.
“I have not taken an official public position yet,” he says. “I do like the concept. I’ve read a number of analyses [of the proposed measure] but I need time to study. I plan on taking a public position soon.”
Cooley readily concedes that the current initiative is based on the policies he implemented in Los Angeles in 2000. He also admits that some of his main deputies were an active part of the conversation when the initiative was being drafted.
“People in my office were involved,” he says. “I think this particular product is better than what was proposed in 2006. It’s workable. And I think it will prevent Three Strikes from being attacked by another 66-type effort.
“When the law first passed, before DAs like myself and others implemented new guidelines, there were some abuses. Some of those have yet to be remedied. This cleans up a loose end.”
Should The Three Strikes Reform Act succeed in November, Cooley’s LA County policy will effectively become the law of the land. Would victory in November be his signature legacy achievement?
“Not really,” he says, with more than a tinge of blasé understatement. “I’ve got more significant accomplishments. This is something for the public to decide. They finally have the chance to make an important decision.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: for a national perspective on the status of reforms to three strikes initiatives and mandatory-minimum sentencing, checkout The Crime Report story by Scott Michels, “Re-thinking Tough on Crime”
Photo/WitnessLA
[…] for WitnessLA. Please check out a full version of his story and other reporting on the issue HERE. He welcomes comments from […]
Matt: did you look into that pizza story or are you just not bothered with facts? I agree that 3strikes needs an update but the guy TERRORIZED a little kid party and thought it was funny. Please put in facts before you wrongly give misguided facts. Is it possible for any of you (on the Left) to just ask once what the victims of their crimes think or feel? A pilot program should be started to determine what works and what doesn’t. But, I can tell you from experience that there has been NO high percentage successful rehab program! Go talk to some victims before you endorse this same old tired nonsense!!
EDTOR’S NOTE:
CASA, you can blame me on the pizza thing, as I recommended that Matt add it because it became the infamous, iconic case. But he could just as easily have chosen any one of a very long list of preposterously trivial crimes that have served as 3rd strikes.
As for the pizza slice theft itself, yeah, back then the guy may have been a drunken jerk.
http://articles.latimes.com/1995-03-03/local/me-38444_1_jerry-dewayne-williams
But if we used drunken jerkiness as the standard for handing out life sentences, on the day after such holidays as July 4th and New Year’s Eve, so many from the general populace would suddenly vanish behind bars that the rest of us would start believing in The Rapture.
And, speaking of facts, even the prosecutor in the pizza slice case felt ambivalent at the sentence. The pizza thief, Jerry Dewayne Williams, has since had his sentence reduced and the prosecutor, when interviewed, agreed that with the sentence reduction, “justice was done.”)
As for your other inquiries, do you really think that those of us who believe in social justice haven’t ever been or don’t know victims?
I normally let that irritatingly predictable question go (when it comes up for the quadrillianth time), because it’s none of anybody’s business, but today I’m just not in the mood.
How many people that you have known and cared about have been murder victims? I mean it. How many? I can’t speak for Matt, but I can speak for myself. In my case, the funeral and heartbreak tally is very, very high. And, in a few cases, very close. So please don’t think you know what those of us who object to the casual demonization of huge swaths of our fellow humans have been through.
You don’t.
Law enforcement officers don’t have the lock on witnessing sorrow, or being lacerated by grief.
As for the rest: of course there are rehab programs that have high percentage success rates. Your statement is preposterously counterfactual. In fact over the next year, we’ll be profiling some of the rehab and reentry programs—juvenile and adult—-that are doing the best in terms of measurable outcomes (and who’s doing the job badly).
Okay, that’s it. I don’t mean to shout at you personally, but on certain days these fact-free assumptions get on my last nerve.
Have a good 4th of July.
Cooley wasn’t the one that prevented Prop 66 from passing. Cooley stayed out of it because he knew law enforcement didn’t back him and he would need them for his next re-election camapign. If you think Cooley wants to be soft on crime to please everyone on the left think again. Cooley does just what is needed to get votes. He is corrupt and a loser. 4 million dollars was put into Prop 66 in the last few weeks and the campaign was by Jerry Brown, Schwarzenneger, Henry Nicholas (who fundeded it thankfully) and others. Cooley had nothing to do with its defeat, but he sure likes to take credit for it now doesn’t he. Cooley is a joke and a loser.
See, here’s the thing. If I’ve already got two strikes against me, I’m not going get drunk and act like a fool or steal a kids pizza.
But hey, that’s just me.
And Casa, please don’t engage in the demonization of wide swaths of our fellow humans.
Just because they have a different slant politically than you doesn’t mean they aren’t compassionate towards all people.
Leave that to others who post here.
You’re above that.
Thin ice, ATQ. From this point on, anyone who tries to kick up the arguments from the Supreme Court decision thread and bring all that over to this or any other thread, will be deleted.
Fair warning.
I’m over it.
C: I have known many victims. My family has suffered much under the guise of social justice a term that no one seems to be able to define. The pizza guy had a long history of criminal behavior and knew the consequences of his acts. If he didn’t know then he was crazy and should have been committed like John Hinkley. But, he was sane and justice was done. He got his sentence reduced which is fine but has he changed at all? NO! There are innocent people who have been convicted wrongly and that’s where we should spend our efforts. C, you and I have the same goals but see strategies differently. My job is to protect those who cannot protect themselves! I will protect victims with my life (and have) if need be. Perhaps, your job was to to give voice to those who should have known better. No animus intended.
Third Strike candidates have earned LWOP, they have two violent convictions. I agree discretion is to be used for strike three, but if the ex-con crosses the line, he’s out. The majority of cons continue on with their criminal life once released. It is in their DNA. How easy is it for one to live life without breaking the law, being involved in criminal activity, etc? You and I do it every day. They can’t, they won’t. They already have TWO violent convictions, how many other crimes did they commit, yet were not caught? We live in a society of permissiveness and that breeds the “second, third, forth, ok, now we are going to give you a fifth chance mentality.” The crime rate dropped dramatically when 3 Strikes was enacted. I have no sympathy for these thugs. And once thing loosen up and these thugs are released, it will just be a matter of time before one of these thugs murder some child or storekeeper in a “two bit robbery.” The public will discover this guy’s violent background and then the question will be asked, “Gee, how did this happen?”
Leave Third Strikes alone, but use discretion on #3, I will agree to that. We have a lot of people out of work, lets help stimulate the economy by building more prisons where these psychopathic killers can prey on their own, behind bars. I know what I’m talking about all too well. Do-gooders, find another cause, please. Leave these animals alone.
From Wiki
In the first half of 2008, Los Angeles reports 198 homicides – which corresponds to a rate of 9.6 (per 100,000 population) – a major decrease from 1993, when the all time homicide rate of over 21.1 (per 100,000 population) was reported for the year.[2] This included 15 officer-involved shootings. One shooting led to a SWAT team member’s death, Randal Simmons, the first in LAPD’s history
************************************************************
There’s the numbers from 1993-2008. A fifteen year period is long enough to be a pretty good indicator. It seems “the system” is doing something right concerning fighting violent crime in the city of LA. The murder rate has been cut by over 50% in that time.
CASA, thanks for your thoughtful and impassioned reply. Your work is much appreciated.
C.
ATQ, you have made the case. Liberals please listen, focus your misguided energy on clean air, alternative fuels, the Spotted Owl, free services to all illegals, open borders, regulating food and drink, outlaw cars and mandate bicycles for transportation, entitlements for everyone and demonize those who have been successful in life.
You guys have already all but ruined the wonderful State of California. You won’t be happy until you spend us into bankruptcy and then claim you need yet higher taxes, “for the children.” You want to burn any nativity scene come Christmas time, oops, sorry, hope I didn’t offend anyone, I meant to say “Holiday” time. Children are being indoctrinated to hate America, hate God, hate government, hate their parents, taught how to freeload on someone else’s hard work and tax money and still blame America in one breath. You guys just can’t screw this nation up any worse than you already have as you worship the like and mindset of Pelosi and the Progressives.
But for God’s sake, please leave violent criminals where they belong, behind bars.
Thanks C
Thanks someone gets to the truth of the pizza theft. I don’t agree with strikes and it should be case specific not just a blanket law, but the pizza thieve terrorized some 12 year old kids on a pier just eating pizza. You make it sound like he stuck his hand in a pizza place stole a slice and ran. If you would of just googled the case you would have known the truth before you sensationalize everything. That is why you are not taken seriously. Please do a little more homework.