California Elections: PROPOSITION 184 : ‘Three Strikes’: A Steamroller Driven by One Man’s Pain

SAN RAMON, Calif. —  Proposition 184, the “three strikes” initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot, would make no change in the law. Yet nearly every politician in the state embraces it--and the few who have doubts keep quiet.

The opposition campaign is all but broke. A Times poll shows that likely voters favor the measure 58%-32%. But the prime sponsor, Mike Reynolds, on a nonstop crusade to avenge his daughter’s murder, barnstorms the state as if legions of well-financed foes were attacking his initiative.

In fact, Reynolds’ most visible foil is a single individual--Marc Klaas, who, if this were not one of the fall’s most unusual campaigns, would seem to be a natural ally.

Klaas is the father of another murdered girl, Polly Klaas. The 12-year-old’s kidnaping and slaying last year ignited Reynolds’ drive to place “three strikes” on the ballot. The initiative, like the “three strikes” law already in effect, calls for substantially increasing prison terms for repeat felons.

Yet with Klaas fighting to defeat Proposition 184--he says it goes too far and costs too much--the campaign features the spectacle of two fathers of murdered children arguing about how best to stop career criminals from preying on the rest of us.

At a debate last week in this Bay Area suburb, Klaas accused promoters of Proposition 184 of engaging “in a cynical, insensitive attempt” to win votes with his daughter’s murder.

Supporters of 184 shot back, saying that if the law had been in place last year, the habitual criminal charged with Polly’s murder never would have been on the streets.

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Reynolds knows that whether or not Proposition 184 passes, his version of “three strikes” already is law in California. The initiative is word-for-word the same as the “three strikes” bill Reynolds pushed through the Legislature early in the year. Gov. Pete Wilson signed it into law in March.

But even with the substantial lead in the polls, and thousands of felons facing charges under its harsh provisions, Reynolds tirelessly travels the state stumping for “three strikes” as embodied in Proposition 184.

He arrived for the debate in San Ramon at night, by plane piloted by a friend, having begun the day with a morning talk show appearance in Fresno and a lunchtime forum before judges and lawyers in Visalia.

The reason he campaigns so hard is simple. Reynolds, a Fresno wedding photographer who buried his daughter when she was 18, trusts almost nothing that goes on in the state Capitol.

“You ask these guys for a hand, they’ll take your arm,” he says.

As Reynolds sees it, a statute passed by the Legislature is one thing. Politicians could undo such a law. But if the electorate approves “three strikes,” politicians will see it as political suicide to tinker with the statute.

“When ‘three strikes’ passes by the voters, the Legislature will be much less inclined to water it down,” says Charles Cavalier, Sacramento political consultant for Reynolds and Proposition 184.

The origins of the “three strikes” campaign date to June, 1992, when Kimber Reynolds stepped from a restaurant in Fresno, and two armed robbers with prison records sped up on a motorcycle. One shot her in the head. As doctors removed Kimber’s life support, Mike Reynolds vowed to find a way to keep repeat felons locked up until they no longer pose a danger.

Reynolds sought help from friends and contacts, including judges, lawyers and experts in the state attorney general’s office, to devise a law aimed at habitual criminals. The result is the nation’s most sweeping “three strikes” statute.

Like the legislation, the initiative doubles prison terms for criminals convicted of a second felony, if they already have been convicted of one prior serious or violent felony.

The law lists about 30 serious and violent felonies, including murder, rape, attempted murder, armed robbery, hard drug sales to minors and one property crime: residential burglary.

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Criminals who commit a third felony, and have been convicted of two serious or violent felonies, will receive sentences of three times the prison term now in the law for the particular crime, or indeterminate sentences of 25 years to life, whichever is greater.

The most controversial provision places repeat felons under the tough provisions if they commit any felony on their second or third strikes. California law encompasses more than 500 felonies, including such common crimes as petty theft and passing bad checks.

Courts already are filling, and state prison officials forecast that the prison population, now 126,000, will hit 232,000 by the turn of the century, requiring 25 more prisons--at about $200 million each.

In Los Angeles County, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti already has filed 9,000 “three strikes” cases since Wilson signed the bill into law. Garcetti takes no position on the initiative. But like many prosecutors, judges and defense lawyers, he believes “three strikes” will add major costs to the criminal justice system.

“The initiative is going to pass,” Garcetti said. “This law is going to be the law for the foreseeable future, and we’re simply going to have to deal with it.”

The costs will come in future years, and go largely unmentioned as political candidates almost uniformly extol “three strikes” in their campaigns. Assemblyman Bill Jones (R-Fresno) appears alongside Reynolds at debates, hoping his role as lead author of the “three strikes” legislation will help him become the next secretary of state.

Rep. Mike Huffington (R-Santa Barbara), the one-term congressman running for U.S. Senate, is the largest donor to Reynolds’ campaign, giving $350,000, a sum that bought him the title of “co-chair” of the initiative and that amounts to more than a third of the $1 million-plus Reynolds has raised.

Cavalier, the consultant for the Yes on 184 campaign, said the wealthy congressman attached no strings to the money. Cavalier also recalled that Huffington said early in the campaign: “ ‘You’ve got to put this on the ballot,’ ” adding that Huffington “wanted very much to use it as a campaign issue.”

By contrast, the No on 184 campaign raised $13,855 through September, scarcely meal money in California politics. The one check of any size, $10,000, came from the California Teachers Assn.

“We’re running on my credit card,” said political consultant Leo McElroy, a former Los Angeles television news reporter who is steering the No on 184 campaign. “I’m hoping we raise enough money that I get reimbursed.”

Unless he finds a vein of gold, McElroy says he has no hope of defeating 184. His goal is to prevent a landslide.

“If this passes with a substantial margin, there is no way the Legislature will buck the tide,” McElroy said. “If it passes 51%-49%, we have a chance to reopen the discussion.”

For some future Legislature to try to amend Proposition 184, it would take a two-thirds vote of both houses. With only the present law in effect, for amendments to pass would require simple majorities. Legally, that is the sole difference between Proposition 184 and the law that has been in effect for the last six months.

McElroy’s campaign consists mainly of dispatching volunteers to every forum and debate on 184. McElroy’s volunteers are primed to give the message that Reynolds’ version of “three strikes” puts the wrong people in prison, and that it costs too much. His most potent weapon is Klaas, a fact that Klaas and others involved in the campaign see as ironic.

In December, as Reynolds gathered signatures for his initiative, Polly Klaas’ body was found in rural Mendocino County. Within hours of the horrible discovery, Reynolds was in Polly’s hometown of Petaluma, at the invitation of a San Francisco radio talk show host, circulating petitions for his initiative.

By January, the grieving Marc Klaas was a prominent backer of Reynolds’ idea. In the following weeks, however, Klaas concluded that Reynolds’ version went too far.

Klaas endorsed legislation pushed by the California District Attorneys Assn., which sought to imprison only repeat violent felons for life. The competing bill’s backers named it after Polly Klaas.

But as Reynolds’ “three strikes” bill swept through the Legislature without so much as a comma being changed, the Polly Klaas bill stalled in the state Senate.

“What’s driving Mike is his passion,” Klaas said. “Mike doesn’t want to be reasoned with.”

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Reynolds knows the Klaas murder fueled his petition drive. “It would have been difficult for us to get the high velocity headlines that the Polly Klaas murder accomplished,” he said. But he also believes his initiative would have qualified anyway, because he raised $800,000 for the paid signature-gathering drive to place it on the ballot.

Reynolds says he does not understand Klaas’ opposition. “I’m sorry to say this, but I think it has come down to a personal animosity. Whether it’s the success we’ve had on this, a me-too syndrome, I don’t know.”

At the San Ramon debate, Klaas pointed out that Reynolds’ idea could send thieves to long prison terms for stealing basketballs, pizzas or car stereos.

“I have had my stereo stolen. I have had my daughter murdered. I know the difference. Stereos can be replaced,” Klaas said.

Defending his law, Reynolds said: “If a person has been convicted twice of serious or violent crimes, we’d be crazy to afford him another chance to do another violent crime. If we can take him out on a low-level felony, by all means, we should do it.”

Reynolds cites a state Justice Department report that crime fell 7.7% in the first six months of the year and that homicide dropped 11.4%.

While most criminal justice experts say it’s too early to explain the drop in crime, Reynolds believes “three strikes” is having a deterrent effect. He also is convinced that “three strikes” won’t cost the state much after all, and may end up saving money, because crime-caused medical bills, lost wages and property damage all will decrease, he says.

“Give it a chance to work,” Reynolds says. “Give this five years to do what we say it will.”