MONDAY, MAY 6, 2013
Volume 12 Issue 151
Santa Monica Daily Press
‘IRON MAN’ OWNS BOX OFFICE SEE PAGE 3
We have you covered
THE NICE START ISSUE
New ‘three strikes’ law varies by county
COMMUNITYPROFILES
RACHEL HORN AND OWEN GORMAN
PAUL ELIAS Associated Press
sibilities. Beginning in San Francisco, they will cross through the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, endless fields of corn and grain in the Midwest and up past the Great Lakes to get to New York City and a train back home. Along the way they will rely on campgrounds, social networks and the kindness of strangers to keep within a meager budget. “If we didn’t go now, we weren’t going to do it,” Horn said.
SAN FRANCISCO Majorities in every California county voted last fall to scale back the state’s Three Strikes law so thousands of inmates serving life sentences for relatively minor third offenses would have the chance to be set free. Five months later, there is no such unanimity among counties when it comes to carrying out the voters’ wishes. Whether a third-strike felon eventually will gain freedom varies greatly depending on the county that sent him away, according to an Associated Press analysis of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation data. In San Bernardino County, which has the second highest number of eligible inmates, 33 percent of the 291 Three Strikes inmates have been granted release under Proposition 36. But in Los Angeles and San Diego counties, just 6 percent of the nearly 1,300 eligible inmates have had their sentences reduced so far. Statewide, 16 percent of 2,847 eligible inmates have been resentenced. Defense attorneys blame prosecutors in some counties for opposing inmate petitions for resentencing even in cases where the prisoner clearly qualifies for early release under the language of Proposition 36. Those oppositions require time-consuming court hearings and written arguments. “We are frustrated that some DAs are stubbornly refusing to follow the law,” said Michael Romano, who authored Proposition 36 and runs the Three Strikes Project at Stanford Law School. The project represents about 20 inmates seeking resentencing. Prosecutors say a decision to set repeat felons free should not be made in haste. “These people aren’t doing life sentences because they are nice people,” said San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Greg Walden, who handles the petitions for his office. “I don’t want to make a mistake and then later have to apologize to a family later victimized by one of these people let out.” Proposition 36 was backed by 68 percent of voters. It modified the state’s 1996 Three Strikes law that stipulated a life sentence for a third felony conviction even if it was for a
SEE CP PAGE 10
SEE STRIKES PAGE 11
Daniel Archuleta daniela@smdp.com
SET: Rachel Horn and Owen Gorman pose under the Santa Monica Pier sign in the days leading up to their cross-country journey.
Two for the road Samohi alumni take on cross-country bike trip for a cause BY ASHLEY ARCHIBALD Daily Press Staff Writer
DOWNTOWN Post-collegiate road trips are the stuff of cinema classics and novels, pitting the restlessness of youth against the endless open road to create a journey replete with beautiful scenery and usually a life lesson or two. Those stories tend to involve cars, however. Santa Monica High alumni and recent college graduates Rachel Horn and Owen Gorman, both 23, embarked Saturday on a different route, taking
their touring bicycles and 45 pounds of personal possessions from San Francisco to New York City in a nearly three-month trek across the country. Their continuing mission: To spread the good word of biking local and sustainable menstrual products and generally to have a good time doing it. Gorman and Horn are, in a word, activists. In this trip they saw a unique opportunity to blend their personal passion about sustainability with an equally-noble desire to hit the road for a few months before the real world chained them to jobs and other respon-
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