Contact your legislators to support Senate Bill 5053. Quoting from our Initiative 593 (a.k.a. three-strikes) law, “punishments for criminal behaviors should be proportionate to both the seriousness of the crime and the prior criminal history. By sentencing three-time most serious offenders to prison for life without the possibility of parole, the people intend to improve public safety by placing the most dangerous criminals in prison.”

Life imprisonment for crimes that are not “most serious” offenses violate the proportionality requirements of our law and it violates the intent to address the “most dangerous” criminals. It is unjust to those serving life sentences for offenses that do not rise to the level of “most serious” and to their families. It causes significant unnecessary expense and reduces respect for the law.

Second-degree robbery and second-degree assault are included in the long list of some 54 felonies that are “strikeable” offenses. Neither of these offenses exhibits behavior that should warrant life in prison and there are many sad stories to prove the prevalence of this injustice.

Tom Martin

Sumner