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                 GENERAL-RKBA Digest 326
Topics covered in this issue include:
1) CRIMESTRIKE: CA Court Limits 3-Strikes Waivers OK'd In '96 by NRA Alerts 

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Topic No. 1
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 13:53:43 -0500 (EST)
From: NRA Alerts 
To: general-rkba-real.nra
Subject: CRIMESTRIKE: CA Court Limits 3-Strikes Waivers OK'd In '96
Message-ID: 
                        CrimeWatch Weekly
            Breaking news on critical crime-fighting 
                 issues, policies and legislation
            Vol. 4, No.  1           January 6, 1998
                     CA Supreme Court Limits 
                  3-Strikes Waivers OK'd In '96
     Eighteen months after it weakened California's three-strikes
law by allowing judges to depart from the law's tough 25-years-
to-life third-strike sentences, the California Supreme Court
yesterday put some limits on that discretion.
     In a unanimous decision, the court said that judges must 
give the full three-strikes sentence without reduction to
defendants whose criminal histories show them to be within "the
spirit of the three-strikes law."
     The defendant in this case, the court said, had an unbroken
record of criminal behavior that included a recent conviction for
spousal abuse.
     The landmark ruling came in the case of Reginald Eugene
Williams, 32, a man with 10 prior jail and prison sentences since
1981.  Williams is serving a nine-year sentence on a 1995 guilty
plea for driving under the influence of PCP, a crime that can be
either a misdemeanor or felony. (He had three previous drunk-
driving convictions.)
     Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Philip Hickok treated
Williams' DUI conviction as a felony, but said he would disregard
one of William's previous "strikes" because it occurred back in
1982 and because Williams had no further convictions for violent
crimes, apparently overlooking Williams' spousal abuse
conviction.
     The prosecution then took the case to an appeals court,
which held that Judge Hickok had abused his authority in
disregarding one of Williams' previous felony convictions. 
     In agreeing Monday with the appeals court, the state supreme
court effectively added an important limit to its June 1996
ruling that allowed judges to overlook prior convictions "in the
furtherance of justice," if they felt the three-strikes
punishment was too severe for the crime. 
     Three-strike supporters have feared the 1996 state supreme
court ruling would undermine California's law, which was adopted
after Washington state pioneered the concept. 
                  Call Them Poison Pen Letters?
     Some prison inmates are pretty incorrigible, and stupid,
too.  Two inmates at Maine's Supermax prison are accused of
sending threatening letters to, among others, President Clinton,
Gov. Angus King, various U.S. attorneys and  two federal judges.
     David Shane Jack, 23, faces a maximum sentence of 35 years
and nearly $2 million in fines to go with the five-year sentence
he's already serving.  
     The other penman, Jamie Lee Cox, 20, who is serving a 10-
year sentence, is looking at a potential 55 years and millions of
dollars in fines, according to the report. Both men are under
federal indictment.
                 Death Usually Doesn't Mean Death
     The case of Roderick Frey, who has been on  Pennsylvania's 
death row longer than any other person, illustrates just one way
criminals avoid paying the ultimate penalty.
     Convicted in Lancaster County of hiring a hit man to kill
his wife 15 years ago, Frey had his death sentence overturned by
the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals last week.  The federal
tribunal said that the trial court judge's charge to the
sentencing  jury was ambiguous, that jurors may not have known
that they had the alternative to the death penalty.
     Frey isn't home free, however.  His first-degree murder
conviction still stands, and he can be sentenced to life in
prison.  That was the penalty given the two men he paid to kill
his estranged wife.
                     Michigan Juggles Inmates
     As Michigan Gov. John Engler attempts to persuade a
reluctant state legislature to build five new prisons, state
corrections officials are following the course of many states,
shipping inmates out of state.
     Forty inmates, mostly drunk drivers and the like, were sent
off to a federal prison at Morgantown, W.Va.  Federal prison
officials were extremely picky about taking non-assaultive
inmates, said a Michigan Corrections spokesman. More than 500
will be sent to federal facilities in future months.
     Even with a substantial reduction in the percentage of
felons being sent to prison, Michigan has nearly 43,000 inmates,
many in makeshift quarters.  
     Gov. Engler, who wants to increase prison sentences for
violent criminals, says the state needs room for 5,400 more
inmates by 2001. 
              Paroled Killer Suspect In Third Death
     The remains of a second woman Philadelphia authorities
suspect was murdered by paroled Nevada murderer Arthur Bomar (CWW
12/16/97) were discovered in a shallow grave in Bucks County on
New Year's Day.
     Bomar  was charged in mid-December with the murder of George
Mason University athlete Aimee Willard, 22.  The charges came 18
months after she was abducted from her car on a Philadelphia
highway and murdered. 
      Bomar has been a suspect in Maria Cabuenos' disappearance
since his arrest last June while driving an auto owned by the 25-
year-old Philadelphia woman.  Ms. Cabuenos' blood was found in
the car, leading to fears, now confirmed, that she, too, had been
murdered.
=+=+=+=+
This information is provided as a service of the National Rifle
Association Institute for Legislative Action, Fairfax, VA.
This and other information on the Second Amendment and the NRA is
available at: http://WWW.NRA.Org
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End of GENERAL-RKBA Digest 326
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