Proposition 66 amends California's Three Strikes Law to reduce the number and types of felonies which count as strikes.
If 66 passes, as I hope it does, pproximately 4100 convicts will be eligible for resentencing. If they are accepted, they waive double jeopardy, which means prosecutors can bring up anything in their past. Although the opponents bring up egregious examples of convicts that 'would go free', it's clear that prosecutors and judges have plenty of latitude.
Latitude is the primary reason I support 66, and it's interesting now that Federal sentencing guidelines will be under review soon. I like my judges to be individuals, not hamstrung by rules that reduce the discretion of their judgement.
The second reason I vote for 66 is as old as the concept of justice itself. Our system presumes innocence until proven guilty because of the principle that it is better to let a guilty man go free than to imprison an innocent man. If we are imprisoning harshly those who are guilty of petty crimes, then we are violating that principle of liberty. California's three strikes law is the toughest in the nation. We alone imprison 4 times as many as 21 other states who have similar laws. Prop 66 will cut that rate in half.
That's good enough for me.
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