Juvenile Justice and the Punishment of Recidivists under California's Three Strikes Law

Abstract

The inclusion of juvenile adjudications as prior strikes under California's Three Strikes law sets up an inevitable clash between the remaining rehabilitative purposes of the juvenile justice system and the punitive intent that motivated Three Strikes. The California Supreme Court, faced with a poorly written statute, has dealt with the statute's ambiguities in a way that has further confused the rules and obfuscated the rationales behind them. In People v. Davis, the court ignored traditional canons of statutory construction and unjustifiably expanded the number of juvenile adjudications that can count as strikes. In People v. Garcia, when the court finally recognized a distinction for the use of juvenile adjudications as strikes, it did so reluctantly and without acknowledging that it was in effect overruling Davis. The supreme court should expressly overrule Davis; including its methods of statutory interpretation and its broadening of the scope of juvenile adjudications that qualify as prior strikes. Trial and appellate courts should use their discretion to dismiss prior juvenile adjudication strikes and resolve the tension created by Three Strikes's application to juvenile adjudications and exacerbated by the Davis and Garcia opinions. This Comment also suggests a number of other ways that juvenile court judges, criminal court judges, and legislators can reduce the conflict between the juvenile justice system and the Three Strikes fueled criminal justice system in California. Language: en