Predictably, the L.A. Times has come out in support of Proposition 66, the initiative that would gut California’s “three strikes” law. Equally predictably, their arguments in favor of the initiative are extremely weak. Take, for example, the first paragraph:

The story of Polly Klaas’ [sic] murder by a man with a history of violence galvanized California voters into passing the state’s three-strikes-and-you’re-out law in 1994. Two dozen states and the federal government have now adopted similar laws. Still, only in California can conviction on any third felony put someone behind bars for life. That singularity points to what is wrong with the California law, despite its emotionally wrenching origins.

Since when is any law wrong (or right) simply because other states have or haven’t copied it? If every other state jumped off of a bridge, should we do that, too?

Proposition 66 would limit third-strike offenses to serious or violent felonies;

It would also water down the definition of a serious or violent felony in a way that will “just happen” to spring uber-contributor Jerry Keenan’s son out of prison

[T]that’s the law many voters now say they thought they passed backed in 1994.

“Many” voters? Which ones? I’d like to see the stats. A few years ago, I conducted an informal (and admittedly unscientific) poll of friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Few had even heard of the distinction between serious/violent felonies and regular felonies. Most assumed any three felonies would do, and some even thought misdemeanors counted. If the Trainer has any real, scientific studies that show otherwise, let’s see them. Otherwise, this vague reference to “many” is about as credible as their frequent reliance on unnamed, amorphous Experts.™

Excluded would be crimes like petty theft, passing a bad check or holding a small amount of drugs. These offenses would remain felonies for repeat offenders, who could still get longer prison terms for each new crime. Only the life sentence is excluded.

Translated: we’re only gutting the three strikes law, not the laws that existed before it. Thank goodness for small favors.

Of California’s 7,300 third-strikers, 4,200 are doing 25 years to life for a nonserious or nonviolent felony.

Like what? Beheading their dogs to get at their ex-girlfriends? You’d think a newspaper named after dogs would be more sensitive tothat sort of thing.

Proposition 66 also requires judges to resentence these third-strikers…

And another 22,000 second-strikers who will benefit from the Keenan Amendment no one wants to talk about, but who’s counting?

meaning some who have already served several years behind bars may be freed.

Probably about 26,000 in all. “Some” is putting it lightly.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley first campaigned for office in 2000 arguing that the 1994 law was unduly harsh and wisely promising not to charge as strikes most nonviolent, nonserious felonies without a good reason. Because Cooley has made good on that promise, his opposition to Proposition 66 is particularly disappointing.

Either that, or because Cooley made good on his promise to end his predecessor’s unduly harsh enforcement of the law, his opposition to Proposition 66 is a strong hint that Prop 66 isn’t what its supporters claim it is.

He — along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Oakland Mayor and former Gov. Jerry Brown and Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer — now insists, wrongly in our view, that the measure would flood the streets with predators.

What the hell is “our view?” One of ignoring the plain text (and the not-so-plain text) of Prop 66, or a semantic discussion over whether or not 27,000 new felons on the street do or do not constitute a flood?

Those who might be released would have already done time for their crimes, just not life.

Oh, OK. Why didn’t you say so? Maybe we should just release everyone, then. Those who might be released would have already done time for their crimes, just not life. Nevermind that most of the 26,000 who stand to be released aren’t third-strikers and aren’t doing life anyway.

In the penultimate paragraph, the Times gets the chutzpah to lecture readers about the “original intent” of the Three Strikes Law, which the Times opposed:

Proposition 66 does not eliminate the three-strikes law. It restores voters’ original intent to keep violent criminals off the street for good.

“Restores?” Please. The intent to keep violent criminals off the street for good does not need any “restoring,” and if it did, Prop 66 would not provide that. Prop 66 does not put anyone in prison who would not be imprisoned under the existing law. All it does is undermine voters’ original intent to keep 26,000 two-time (or more) violent and serious criminals off the street for a long period of time.

No Times article is complete without at least one example of the Power of the Jump.™ All through this screed I’ve been bitching about the Times’s refusal to admit that Prop 66 waters down the definitions of “serious” and “violent” felonies qualifying for strikes one and two, and doesn’t just tighten the rules for strike three. Now, in the remainder of this same paragraph, they finally make an oblique reference to that obscure “feature”:

That said, like almost every initiative, Proposition 66 is not a model of nuanced legislation. It goes too far in narrowing the universe of “third strikes.” If it passes, lawmakers in Sacramento should reinstate serious offenses like burglary and arson to that list.

Assuming that they can, which in all likelihood they can’t. California law generally prohibits the Legislature from amending a voter initiative unless the initiative itself authorizes them to amend it. The three strikes situation is slightly different because California actually has two such laws, one passed by the Legislature at the eleventh hour in 1994, the other passed by the voters who didn’t trust the Legislature not to repeal the law they wouldn’t have passed in the first place, but for the pending initiative. It is likely, however, that the new initiative will prohibit the Legislature from adding any new strikes, or at least any new strikes that the initiative itself has removed from the law. Even if a court upholds a law like that, the new law would be ex post facto as to all 22,000 second-strikers who, in the Times’s view, would merely “populate” our streets, not “flood” them.

Finally, the Times can’t make it through a single editorial about a ballot initiative without taking a cheap shot at the initiative process itself:

Then again, if Sacramento had fixed the three-strikes law in the first place, and not been so cowered by the fear of seeming “soft on crime,” this proposition wouldn’t be needed now.

As I have explained above, Sacramento does not have the power to “fix” the original three strikes initiative. Of course, if it had not been so soft on crime (no sneer quotes needed) until 1994, it could have enacted a credible three-strikes initiative of its own, and no ballot initiative would have been needed in the first place. But instead, it cowered by the fear of being too hard on criminals, until voters made it clear they were going to take matters into their own hands. That, and not the Legislature’s fear of being too tough on crime, is why the legislature is not free to pass the idiotic law California voters are on the brink of passing themselves.

[Cross-posted to Patterico's Pontifications.]