High court upholds '3 strikes' felony law

TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Supreme Court upheld the state's 1999 "three strikes" law mandating longer prison sentences for repeat felons in a 4-3 ruling Thursday.

Florida's five mid-level appeals courts had been at odds over the constitutionality of the law. Two of the lower courts had concluded the Legislature, when it enacted the law, violated the state constitutional requirement that bills deal with only one subject; three ruled there was no problem with the law's scope.

But after the first ruling against the original law, state lawmakers came back in 2002 and passed the same provisions in five different bills.

Under the provisions, judges must give defendants the maximum sentence for a third felony. For example, the top penalty for armed robbery is life in prison, so a "three-strike" offender would have to get life.

Other provisions require a three-year minimum sentence for aggravated assault or battery of someone 65 years old or older, three years for assaulting a police officer and five years for battery of a police officer.

The law also makes possession of 25 pounds of marijuana -- half the prior minimum of 50 pounds -- enough to charge someone with trafficking and enhances penalties for repeat sexual batterers.