The Stanford Law School Three Strikes Project is one of the eleven Mills Legal Clinics at Stanford Law School. Founded in 2006, it provides legal representation to convicts serving life sentences under California's three strikes law for committing minor, non-violent felonies. Under the supervision of clinic instructors, students represent clients in both federal and state court. The Project is directed by attorney and lecturer Michael Romano.
In order to secure the release of its clients, the Project pursues resentencing hearings or constitutional challenges to the sentences imposed, either by direct appeal or post-conviction habeas petitions. Typical claims include ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment, cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, and habeas petitions with newly discovered evidence under People v. Superior Court (Romero), 13 Cal.4th 497 (1996), and People v. Williams, 17 Cal.4th 148 (1998). Clinic students work in two-person teams representing a single client, visiting the client in prison, conducting factual investigations throughout California, and drafting court pleadings and briefs.
Despite facing difficult legal terrain under Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11 (2003), and Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003), in which the United States Supreme Court effectively foreclosed relief for the disproportionality of third-strike sentences under the federal Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, the Project has been largely successful. To date, it has won the reversal or resentencing of over 150 people.[1] Previous clients had been sentenced to life in prison for minor crimes such as possession of less than a gram of narcotics, stealing a dollar's worth of change from a car, shoplifting three disposable cameras, writing bad checks, and stealing tools from a tow truck.
The Project has been featured in stories by the New York Times Magazine,[2] the Los Angeles Times,[3][4] The Economist,[5] and the BBC.[6]
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[MUSIC] Stanford University. >> Three Strikes Project is a program at Stanford Law School where we represent people who've been sentenced under the Three Strikes Law for extraordinarily minor crimes. Over the past year, we have been involved with a campaign to reform portion of the three strikes law, which in November, we were successful in passing Proposition 36. It was David Mills who came to us, and said, how can we change the law? >> I really do believe. That determinate fixed sentences. Giving judges increasing less discretion. Our mistake. And requiring a 25 years to life sentence or life sentence is, to my way of thinking, not only a mistake, but abhorrent. When he actually gave me the 25 years to life, his last words to me were, by the time I get out of prison I won't have the ambition or spunk to do crime or drugs anymore, you'll be my age. That just hit me so hard right there. >> I represented Shane Taylor this third strike was for possession of Methamphetamine. It was literally a 1/10th of a packet of sugar's worth of methamphetamine. I got him out by filing a petition after Prop 36 passed. And, I'm really excited that he actually got out, and has been able to be reunited with his family after all this time. >> We get to go stand up to a court and say, it is unfair and it is unjust that our client has been sentenced to life for petty theft. I'm extraordinarily proud of our students, who get to do that, get to stand up in court, and say this is wrong and I'm going to correct an injustice. Have they committed crimes? Absolutely. Do they deserve to be punished? Absolutely. But we think that a life sentence for these crimes is unjust, it's disproportionate, it doesn't improve public safety. Stanford Law School became associated with the possibility of thoughtful change in the criminal justice system. We were looking at a problem and taking a leading role in trying to help society confront and deal with that problem. Small change is accomplishable, with the hope that there will be subsequent changes building on it. >> For more, please visit us at stanford.edu.
References
- ^ "Three Strikes Project".
- ^ Bazelon, Emily (May 21, 2010). "Arguing Three Strikes". New York Times Magazine.
- ^ Leonard, Jack (May 13, 2009). "Law students help free three-strikes offenders". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ "Three strikes sanity". Los Angeles Times. May 16, 2009.
- ^ "Criminal law in California". The Economist. June 11, 2009.
- ^ "Assignment: Three Strike Lifers". BBC.
External links
See also
- Stanford Law School
- Legal clinic
- Defense (legal)
- Three strikes law
- Recidivism
- Habitual Offender Laws
This page was last edited on 17 August 2022, at 16:02