Lockyer Gives Up Three-Strikes Case

State Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said Thursday he would not appeal further a high-profile three-strikes case in which a federal appeals court ruled that a 25-years-to-life sentence for the theft of a $199 VCR constituted “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Lockyer said he was acting in “the interest of justice” in an “exceedingly rare case,” bringing an end to a long legal battle for Isaac Ramirez, 42.

Given the facts of the case, “I have concluded that Ramirez has paid his debt to society and now has a chance to become a productive, law-abiding citizen,” Lockyer said.

Informed by a reporter of the decision, Ramirez, who is working as a maintenance man at a church in Corona, said: “Oh, man! That is so great.”

“That is such a blessing,” he added. “I really feel that justice did prevail.”

In 1991, Ramirez pleaded guilty to two nonviolent shoplifting offenses iand served just over six months under a plea agreement.

Five years later, Ramirez was caught walking out of a Sears store in Montclair with a VCR. He surrendered to authorities and returned the stolen machine.

He was tried, convicted as a third-strike offender and given the life sentence. In 2002 a federal district judge in Los Angeles ruled that the sentence was excessive and ordered Ramirez released, after he had served 5 1/2 years.

On April 19, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision, saying the sentence was “grossly disproportionate to the crimes committed, in violation of the 8th Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2003 had upheld California’s three-strikes law, but held out the possibility that some cases might be so exceptional as to violate the Constitution.

Ramirez’s case was the first in which that exception was used to overturn a sentence.