Before 2017, a person in Louisiana could be sentenced to life in prison after receiving a fourth nonviolent conviction under the state’s habitual offender law.
— BILL LOHMANN, THE NEW YORK TIMES
A Louisiana man whose life sentence for attempting to steal hedge clippers in 1997 drew a national spotlight to the state’s habitual offender law has been granted parole, according to the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections.
The Louisiana Committee on Parole voted 3-0 on Thursday to release Fair Wayne Bryant, 63, who was convicted on a felony count of attempted simple burglary of an inhabited dwelling in a storeroom at a home in Shreveport, La.
Under a state law that penalizes offenders with previous convictions, Mr. Bryant was sentenced to life in prison for the conviction.
— Credits
Featured Image, Fair Wayne Bryant walked out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary on Thursday after serving over 20 years.Credit…Kerry Myers/The Louisiana Parole Project
Full article @ The New York Times
— Related
n the United States, habitual offender laws (commonly referred to as three-strikes laws) were first implemented on March 7, 1994, and are part of the United States Justice Department‘s Anti-Violence Strategy. These laws require both a severe violent felony and two other previous convictions to serve a mandatory life sentence in prison. The purpose of the laws is to drastically increase the punishment of those convicted of more than two serious crimes.
Twenty-eight states have some form of a “three-strikes” law. A person accused under such laws is referred to in a few states (notably Connecticut and Kansas) as a “persistent offender“, while Missouri uses the unique term “prior and persistent offender“. In most jurisdictions, only crimes at the felony level qualify as serious offenses; however, misdemeanor and/or wobbler offenses can qualify for application of the three-strikes law in California, whose harsh application has been the subject of controversy.
The three-strikes law significantly increases the prison sentences of persons convicted of a felony who have been previously convicted of two or more violent crimes or serious felonies, and limits the ability of these offenders to receive a punishment other than a life sentence.
The expression “Three strikes and you are out” is derived from baseball, where a batter against whom three strikes are recorded strikes out.
Source – Three-strikes law (Updated: 27 September 2020) Wikipedia. Available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law, (Accessed: 17 October 2020)