Field poll: Support for easing '3-strikes'

By Gary Delsohn -- Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, June 10, 2004

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By an overwhelming majority, voters are poised to significantly soften California's still hotly debated "three-strikes" sentencing law, according to a public opinion poll released Wednesday.

The statewide Field Poll shows 76 percent of likely voters supporting a November initiative that would amend the law so that life sentences could be imposed only if the defendant's third strike was a violent felony.

The support is across the board, with 80 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of Republicans now saying they'll vote for the initiative.

If the trend prevails on Election Day, voters will do what the U.S. Supreme Court refused to do when it narrowly upheld provisions of the law last year. Despite cases in which some defendants received life sentences for third-strike convictions for such crimes as theft or burglary, the court, by a 5-4 vote, ruled that "three strikes" does not violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Results of the poll were released just a few hours before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger met privately with California district attorneys and reassured them that he supports the "three-strikes" law as it is.

"I'm shocked," Dave LaBahn, executive director of the California District Attorneys Association, said of the poll numbers. "We have our work cut out for us to educate the public. Seventy-six percent is a huge, huge number."

More than $1.5 million in financial support for passage of the initiative has come from a Sacramento insurance broker whose son is serving eight years in Folsom Prison for driving while drunk and causing the death of two of his passengers. Some experts have said Richard Keenan could get released several years early if the initiative passes because, even though he's not serving a "three-strikes" 25-years-to-life sentence, the initiative contains provisions that could make him eligible for early release.

The initiative would apply retroactively to inmates already sentenced under the 10-year-old "three-strikes" law, and prosecutors gave Schwarzenegger a report Wednesday that said possibly 25,000 inmates would be "released immediately or in a short period of time" if the initiative passes.

LaBahn's reaction to the poll came shortly after he and about two dozen district attorneys met with Schwarzenegger and heard him say he's with them in opposing the initiative.

Sources at the meeting said the GOP governor told prosecutors he also backs them in supporting a November initiative that would require DNA samples from anyone arrested on felony charges.

"His position on 'three strikes' has been consistent even before this initiative was a factor," said Margita Thompson, the governor's press secretary.

According to those at the meeting, however, Schwarzenegger stopped short of promising to campaign for either measure - something pollster Mark DiCamillo said could be crucial on the "three-strikes" initiative.

"My interpretation is that a reading of the official summary seems reasonable to most voters," DiCamillo said. "They support it because of that, and there's the added virtue that it saves hundreds of millions of dollars, which can't hurt during times of fiscal crisis."

And because this initiative shows far more support than any other that Field is tracking, DiCamillo said it would take a well-financed, statewide campaign to defeat it.

Schwarzenegger "can be credible" on an anti-initiative campaign, DiCamillo said.

"But it's a judgment call on where he decides to expend his political capital," he said. "It wouldn't seem to make sense, on the face of it, for him to expend it here. He's got a lot of battles to fight."

Mike Vitello, a professor at Sacramento's McGeorge School of Law and an expert on the "three-strikes" law, said he has seen other polls showing solid support for the initiative but acknowledged he was somewhat surprised by the lopsided Field numbers. But he added that he expects the race to get much tighter once voters focus more closely on the issue.

Vitello, who has written extensively on the need to reform a variety of California sentencing laws, supports softening the "three-strikes" law but said "it's going to be a tough, tough campaign."

Despite the poll results, Sacramento District Attorney Jan Scully said she expects voters to stand behind the law in the end.

The latest Field Poll also gauged voter support for two other initiatives on the November ballot. By 51 percent to 38 percent, likely voters supported a measure that would impose a surtax on telephone calls made in California to fund emergency medical services.

The poll also showed voters support, 50 to 37 percent, the initiative calling for open voting in primary elections.

Poll results are based on telephone surveys of 647 likely voters conducted in English and Spanish from May 18-24. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.8 percent.

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