A kidnapped girl was discovered 18 years after her abduction at the home of a convicted parolee and registered sex offender despite the fact that law enforcement has repeatedly been in contact with the man and has visited his home on many occasions over the years. That law enforcement for almost two decades missed Jaycee Dugard at the home of Phillip and Nancy Garrido is no great surprise to criminal lawyers. The shared resources of the U.S. federal and Nevada state authorities was not enough to effectively manage this parolee. California – like every other state – has overburdened our police, probation and parole authorities by continuing the trend toward retribution and punishment over rehabilitation and reformation. Non-violent three strike offenders overburden prison officials. Juveniles are increasingly being punished as adults within the already crowded criminal courts. New enhancements and new Penal Code provisions and harsher punishment are continually being written into law. The list of those offenses that require registration for life as a sex offender is ever expanding. Consequently, prison, parole and probation officials cannot keep up with the workload and those persons convicted of misdemeanor non-violent sex offenses are draining resources from the supervision of high risk offenders. As California clearly does not have more money to throw at these criminal justice problems, perhaps it is time to re-think how to best allocate the money we do have.
Posts Tagged ‘three strikes’
Juvenile Offenses can be used as Strikes
Juvenile adjudications (convictions) can be used against adult criminal defendants under the “three strikes” law even though juvenile defendants have no right to a jury trial. The California Supreme Court, in People v Nguyen, held that prior juvenile adjudications that qualify as serious or violent felonies (”strikes”) can used to substantially increase an adult criminal defendant’s felony sentence, despite the fact that juveniles are not entitled to a trial by jury.
In Nguyen, the Court emphasized that a defendant is still free to contest the fact of a prior conviction in the adult case, and, of course, a defendant can always challenge whether the juvenile adjudication actually qualifies as a serious or violent felony offense. Juvenile cases from outside of California are example of those types of cases often subject to successful challenge on the issue of whether they qualify as a strike offense. But for now, criminal defense attorneys can no longer successfully raise 5th 6th and 14th Amendment objections against the use of the juvenile case as a strike solely due to the lack of a jury trial right in juvenile court.
The California Supreme Court may get overruled on this issue by the U.S. Supreme Court. Criminal defense lawyers therefore must continue to object to the use of juvenile offense as strikes in order to preserve this issue for appeal, especially for criminal defendants looking at a life sentence.
