3-Strikes Defendant Gets 11 Years as Judge Makes Tough Call

Calling it his toughest decision in 14 years on the bench, a Pasadena Superior Court judge on Monday sentenced a third-strike defendant, who had twice bested the district attorney’s office while acting as his own lawyer, to 11 years in prison for failing to register as a sex offender.

Judge Judson W. Morris Jr. rejected prosecutors’ arguments that Eric Ellington should be sentenced to 35 years to life under California’s three-strikes law, saying it was an unduly harsh punishment for a nonviolent offense. He noted that police know how to find Ellington, who was in constant contact with police and courts during the time he failed to register.

But Morris had strong words for Ellington, whom he accused of lying to a jury and trying to forge evidence during the trial that ended in his conviction last year.

“He is a danger to society. He is manipulative,” Morris said of Ellington. “His conduct in the court is probably the worst of all aggravating factors.” But, Morris said, “I do not think he is a sexual predator.”

Wearing a blue jail jumpsuit, Ellington sat impassively as Morris handed down his sentence. Ellington’s mother and another supporter watched in the nearly empty courtroom.

Ellington, who pleaded guilty to rape charges 20 years ago, contended that prosecutors charged him with failing to annually give his address to police--as required by law--as retaliation for his boasting about his trial victories in the courthouse, where he was a frequent visitor, and in an unpublished book.

He acted as his own lawyer at his trial in July, but after a jury convicted him of five counts of failing to register as a sex offender, Ellington had a change of heart and hired former O.J. Simpson prosector Christopher Darden--now a defense lawyer--and attorney Rhonda Walker to handle his sentencing.

Darden, who had unsuccessfully argued that Ellington deserved a new trial, praised the sentence. “The judge did all he could to see justice prevailed in this case,” Darden said in an interview after urging the judge to sentence Ellington to only eight years in prison.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Patricia Wilkinson did not return a call for comment after the verdict. But she told the judge she believed Ellington’s long rap sheet and his demeanor during the trial and sentencing merited a stiff sentence.

“He is not being sentenced because of a failure to file forms,” as Darden contended, Wilkinson told Morris. “He is being sentenced because his entire life is a [history] of criminal conduct.”

That history began with the rape conviction in 1979, when Ellington was 17. He admitted to participating in the gang-rape of a teenage girl in Chicago’s South Side. He also pleaded guilty to four robbery charges. Ellington has said he was the lookout during the attack and in court Monday said he was swayed by older youths.

That was Ellington’s last conviction for violence or a sex crime. His second strike came in 1993, when he confessed to a string of burglaries in the Pasadena area in what he said was a “cry for help” in battling an addiction to crack cocaine.

After that conviction, Ellington, who faced a life sentence if convicted of another felony, began acting as his own lawyer. He won two trials--one in which he was accused of stealing a car and another in which he was charged with burglary. One of his brothers was his alibi witness in both cases, and Ellington wrote an unpublished book titled “Three Strikes I’m Not Out.”

But he continued to run up a string of misdemeanor convictions for a series of petty crimes. It was when he was in court to present a certificate that he had completed a drug rehabilitation program in March 1999 that he was arrested for failing to register.

Undaunted, Ellington continued to work on a new book, tentatively titled “Four Strikes I’m Still Not Out,” until his July conviction.

On Monday, Morris rejected a series of motions presented by Darden for a new trial. He had argued that because Ellington was deprived of his daily antidepressants the day before his closing argument, the defendant was rendered unable to represent himself. He also contended that Ellington had not been fully warned of his 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination when he took the stand--disastrously--in his own defense during the trial.

Morris rejected both arguments, noting that records showed Ellington missing only one pill and recalling that both he and Wilkinson had warned Ellington about testifying and had pleaded with him to get a lawyer.

“This is not even a close one, folks,” Morris said. “This was a fair trial.”

Ellington then read a lengthy, digressive statement pleading for leniency. He noted that he has two children, said he took responsibility for his crimes, insisted he had not forged evidence at his trial, took a swipe at a former fiancee who testified against him, praised Morris and Wilkinson and even made what appeared to be a joke about the possibility of his running for president if released from custody.

He also admitted he had erred in representing himself.

“No matter what, I’ll never represent myself . . . again,” he said. “It was my ego. I really thought I was hot stuff after the first two trials.”