California’s voters softened one of the nation’s most destructive and unfair sentencing policies this week when they approved a ballot initiative revising the infamous three-strikes law of 1994, which imposes a life sentence for any felony conviction — no matter how minor — if the defendant has two previous serious convictions.
The revised law imposes a life sentence only when the third felony conviction is serious or violent. It also authorizes the courts to resentence thousands of three-strikers whose third offenses were not violent or serious, as long as they do not pose a serious risk to public safety.
