California Three Strikes Defense Lawyers

What You Need to Know About California’s Three Strikes Law

California’s “three strikes” law is aimed at repeat offenders. The name comes from baseball, but a “strike” is defined in this case as a felony that meets certain requirements, usually any violent or serious felony, or any felony involving a deadly weapon.

If you have a prior “strikeable” felony conviction on your record, you face a double sentence for any subsequent felony conviction, even if the new crime is a minor felony and is not a strike. After two felony “strikes,” you face 25 years to life in prison for any subsequent felony — again, even one that would not be a strikeable offense. This is true even if the prior convictions happened years ago or if the third felony was not violent or serious.

Because the third felony doesn’t have to be a strike, the three-strikes law can (and has) put people away for life for minor crimes like shoplifting. For that reason, Wallin & Klarich Orange County strike crime attorneys will always try to reduce our clients’ charges to misdemeanors or non-strike felonies. In this way, we work to stop the three-strikes process before it can damage your record. If you’ve been charged with a strikeable felony, it is critical that you seek the advise of an experienced criminal defense firm like Wallin and Klarich before entering a guilty plea. You should make sure that your California strike crime defense lawyer has significant experience in defending three-strikes cases. Wallin and Klarich has been successfully handling three strikes cases for many years.

In a three-strike case, Wallin & Klarich will always first concentrate on the facts of the new case and do all that is possible to see to it that our client is not found guilty of a new felony offense. However, if in fact the evidence of guilt is overwhelming the battle is not over.

In many cases, even where the defendant is guilty of a new felony offense and in fact has two prior “strikes” we can file a motion to ask the court to “strike a prior strike” for the purposes of sentencing. What this means is we can ask the judge based upon the totality of the circumstances to decide NOT (bold) to impose a three strikes sentence. The result of this can be enormous. It can mean that a defendant can be sentenced to prison for as little as 32 months as opposed to a sentence of 25 years to life. The court must consider whether the defendant’s crime was in line with “the spirit of the three strikes law.” If you’re facing any case that may result in a “strike” conviction call Wallin & Klarich as soon as possible to see how we can help.