The New York Times online version offers what they call an op-doc, which apparently is an op-ed with a video behind it.  How this will work, or even if this will appear, in the dead-tree version is unclear, as I haven’t see it yet, but it will be interesting to see whether the op-ed part, the writing without the video, plays in Peoria.

The Times allows me to link to a video called Three Strikes of Injustice.  It can’t be embedded in this post, at least not until someone more knowledgeable than me puts it on Youtube, and since the Times is so important that it hides behind a paywall, some won’t be able to see it.  It’s a shame, because the video is good and important. But what’s “good and important” compared to making a buck to a newspaper?  Priorities.

So within these constraints comes the point of the op-doc, the video and its accompanying text.

In 1994, California voters passed the harshest three-strikes law in the country. Soon after, stories began to emerge about people receiving life sentences for petty crimes such as stealing a pair of gloves or a slice of pizza. Such cases challenged the commonly held belief that the law applied only to violent criminals.

The case of Shane Taylor, the subject of this video, is common in many ways, but also unusual in that his judge and prosecutor have gone on record saying that his sentence is unfair and should be modified. Under current law, revising a sentence after it has been imposed is nearly impossible.

Shane Taylor got 25 to life. He got hit for two burglaries of empty residences to feed his drug habit.  His third pop was for $5 worth of drugs. Yer out!  The video is long on emotion and short on substance, but what can you expect?  It’s an emotional issue, and the point isn’t that the law, with 4,000 imprisoned under it, won’t serve the putative claims of its proponents, but that it also sweeps up a guy like Shane Taylor.

The point of the op-doc is to bolster support for California Proposition 36.

On Nov. 6, voters in California will decide whether to adopt Proposition 36, a ballot initiative that would reform the most draconian aspects of the law — and, in our view, restore the original intent of voters, which was to lock away violent career criminals for life, without unjustly throwing away the lives of small-time, nonviolent offenders like Mr. Taylor. Like most Californians, we believe that the punishment should fit the crime. We’re encouraged that polls show broad public support for the measure.

Sadly, the creators of the video and authors of the op-doc are shooting for half a loaf, maybe just a few slices of bread, rather than confronting the problem in full.  It’s understandable, given the absurdity of such unduly simplistic Menckian solutions as California’s three strikes law. “Simplistic” has won the hearts and minds of most Americans, as they can grasp it without getting a headache.  Nobody wants to get a headache.

Reforming the “most draconian” aspects of a fundamentally misguided law means that the rest of the draconian aspects will still be there, waiting for their next victim.  The heart of the three strikes law is to instill fear in violent criminals that there will be no possibility of their walking away from their third conviction.  This, the theory goes, will deter them from a third try.  Who wouldn’t want criminals to be deterred from a third try?  It’s an easy sell.

Even in Shane Taylor’s case, it’s not all that hard to come up with an argument that he got what he deserved.  After all, his third bust may have been for $5 in drugs, but his first two were for burglaries.  Those are serious crimes, and if someone had been home when he broke and entered, would he have blown them kisses and walked away?  Drug addicts aren’t always so kind then they need a fix.

And after two convictions, after prison, after having a baby who he says he loves, he still went out on the street to get drugs.  The same thing that drove him to burgle other people’s houses.  Nobody put a gun to his head and forced drugs into his body.  Nobody made him forget his paternal obligations, his spousal duties, his humanity.  He made the choice.  Having done so, who is Shane Taylor to complain now of the consequences?

No doubt somebody is nodding their head as they read this, muttering to themselves, “well, yeah, he made his bed and now he has to sleep in it.” Just as  somebody commented that 14-year-old  Cassidy Goodson was, indeed, “evil” for having murdered her newborn.

Perhaps they’re right.  Perhaps Shane Taylor needs to be removed from society for the rest of his life. Perhaps Cassidy Goodson deserves as harsh a punishment as the law can impose.  I don’t know either of these human beings, their circumstances, their lives, what went through their minds or what they may do if they aren’t locked away forever.  You don’t either.

What I do know, and know very well, is that hard rules that fail to take into account anything beyond the most simplistic, the fact of a crime, are anathema to the one thing that justifies the existence of our criminal justice system: the ability to address each case, each crime, each defendant, individually.  If they deserve a life in prison, a judge can impose that sentence. If they don’t, then a different sentence can be imposed.

You think the judge is too soft (or too hard for that matter)? It’s easy to know with certainty from a distance, where you aren’t burdened with facts and details, with the looks in children’s eyes, whether the defendant’s or the victim’s.  Our system was crafted with the burden of coming up with the right punishment, neither more nor less than serves the purposes of a sentence, in the hands of a judge.

Simplistic laws, whether three strikes, mandatory minimums or any other variation on a theme, damage the foundation of our system by precluding judges from fashioning a sentence based on all the factors that justifies the government’s assertion of power over the individual in the first place.

Then again, simplistic people don’t care, as long as it’s not them in the dock.  Anything to avoid their head hurting.