Yet Another Example of Why We Need the Three Strikes Law
LAPD Officer Kristina Ripatti was shot a week ago by a robbery suspect named James Fenton McNeal, 52. The L.A. Times reports today that she is paralyzed from the chest down, and doctors say she is unlikely to walk again.
Ripatti is a 10-year veteran of the LAPD and the mother of a 15-month-old girl. Peers call her one of the Southwest Division’s highest-performing officers, admired by colleagues for her acumen, drive and superb physical fitness. Tall and lithe, Ripatti is married to another member of the department, Southeast Division gang officer Tim Pearce.
And if you want to know why our sentencing laws are better today than they were in the 1970s, you need only look at the criminal history of her assailant, as revealed in the Times story today:
McNeal had a 33-page rap sheet that includes a conviction for a second-degree murder in 1973 and a robbery in Inglewood five years later, followed by other prison sentences and robberies, [LAPD spokeman Lt. Paul] Vernon said.
Read that again.
A conviction for murder — and a robbery five years later.
That’s what it was like in the ’70s, folks. People would commit murders, get convicted, and walk out of prison, all in less time than I had braces on my teeth.
And some of these folks are still walking the streets today. Yeah, maybe they’re in their 50s — but as McNeal’s example illustrates, some of them are still quite dangerous.
By the way, from an earlier story on McNeal and the shooting, we learn this:
A Police Department spokesman said McNeal most recently was released from the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo on Aug. 18, 2002, after serving nine years for attempted robbery.
The paper doesn’t say whether he served nine actual years, or instead served a nine-year sentence, which means less than nine years’ real time. If he served nine actual years, that means he would have been sentenced in 1993.
That’s a year before the Three Strikes law was passed.
If McNeal had been sentenced on his attempted robbery case after the Three Strikes law passed, he would have been eligible for a 25-to-life sentence. With murder and robbery on his record from the 1970s (both strikes), an attempted robbery would have subjected him to a 25-to-life sentence. (Incidentally, this would still be the case even if the pending proposition to reform Three Strikes were to pass.)
Bottom line: if we’d had the Three Strikes law a year or two earlier, Kristina Ripatti might not have been shot. She’d still be able to run around with her 15-month-old daughter.
Something to keep in mind when you discuss the merits of the Three Strikes law.
P.S. I’m hoping to help collect donations for Ripatti and her family in the upcoming week. Stay tuned for details.
When Senator George Allen was Governor of Virginia he pushed a law through the legislature to completely abolish parole. They also embarked on a prison-building program to get ready for the increased population. The excess prison space was utilized by taking in out-of-state prisoners for cost. AND IT WORKED!! Career criminals are now remaining in prison.
The law does allow a sentence to be reduced by earning “good behavior” time, but always at least 80% of a sentence must be served. The good behavior clause is a good tool for corrections management.
That’s just one of the reasons why we love George Allen out here.
Bill Schumm (33ab73) — 6/10/2006 @ 4:56 pmThe ACLU should be targeted under the RICO act. Apparently law abiding citizens have no rights until they become a victim, if they are lucky or unlucky enough to survive!
vet66 (a90377) — 6/11/2006 @ 7:58 amPatterico, I am a big fan, althgough I have never posted before. But I must now break my silence to challenge your argument here. You suggest that Three Strikes could have avoided this tragedy. But people opposed to 3 Strikes could just as easily argue that McNeal might not have shot at the cops in the absence of 3 Strikes. McNeal doubtless would have known he was a 3 Striker, and — at 52 — would likely die in prison if convicted. That would provide a powerful motive for McNeal to do all he could to avoid arrest, even if it meant possibly killing a cop — or getting killed himself — in the process.
cleo (a77ce3) — 6/11/2006 @ 2:31 pmThat’s a possibility as well, but more remote than you might think. You have to look at what he would have been facing if there were no Three Strikes law.
The stories indicate he was being sought in connection with a robbery of a gas station. That’s a violent felony for which convicts serve 85% of their time.
I am assuming he used a gun in a gas station robbery (people almost always do), but we’ll compute the sentences both ways: with and without a gun.
He could get 5 years for robbery, 5 years for each of his prior serious felonies (even absent the Three Strikes law: Pen. Code section 667(a)), and 10 years if he used a gun. That’s 15 years if no gun was used, and 25 years if a gun was used (and it probably was). All at 85%.
And he was 52.
Absent the Three Strikes law, maybe he would have been fine with going to prison for 25 years (an actual 21 years 3 months, getting him out at the age of 73). I kind of doubt it.
Of course, this assumes he had a good idea what he would be facing, and since he was no criminal law scholar, he wouldn’t have known his potential sentence with the same kind of precision that I do. But he probably would have known that he would be going away for a huge chunk of time.
So you have a valid point in theory, but I don’t know whether it’s valid in the real world.
Patterico (50c3cd) — 6/11/2006 @ 2:46 pmOf course, if he were already in prison for life, we aren’t having this discussion. So my initial postulate — that a Three Strikes law in 1992 would have probably prevented this tragedy — is still accurate.
Patterico (50c3cd) — 6/11/2006 @ 2:47 pmCheck out this nonsense from WaPo, romanticizing the old days where people didn’t spend long stretches in the pokey:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/10/AR2006061000719.html
SPO (62ca0c) — 6/11/2006 @ 2:54 pmHi, I really enjoyed reading this, I was wondering if it would be okay if I used some information here for a paper due in my Criminal Justice class?
Sandra (da639e) — 8/15/2006 @ 9:56 pm