3 Strikes Cases Lawyer Los Angeles

What is a strike case? In California, there are two ways in which a strike can affect you. It can affect you if you have a prior strike and a new case or if you are now charged with your first strike….or both. First, a felony strike is permanent on your record even if it was expunged previously. A felony strike is a serious or violent crime, such as an assault with a deadly weapon, burglary of a house or making a terrorist threat against someone. The list is very long of what qualifies. See Penal Code 1192.7 for a list of serious felonies. (link)

If you have a prior record, even long before the law changed making certain crimes a strike, you can be charged with a strike prior. As an example, if you have a clean record since 1994, but pled to an assault crime, your case now falls under the 3 strikes law. That means you are more likely to receive a prison sentence in the case AND any state prison sentence you receive will be doubled. As an example, the lowest term you can receive for a case is 16 months. If you are sentenced to that term, it will be doubled for a 32 month sentence AND you may have to do up to 80% of your sentence.

This applies to any person with a prior felony on their record, regardless of what State you may have been convicted in.

If you have no prior record and you are charged with a Strike crime and you are convicted of that Strike crime, you will have to serve 80% of your sentence if its classified as a serious crime, and 85% of your sentence if its classified as a violent crime in a state prison.

I have been successful in getting cases like these dropped to non-strike felonies which means you can serve your time at 50% or even serve a prison sentence in county jail. Every case is unique, but hiring a lawyer that fights for your individual case will undoubtedly assist a person in almost every single case. It is very rare that I have been unable to help a client when charged with a crime.

If a person has two or more strike convictions on their criminal history, they can be charged with a 3rd strike for ANY offense, including petty theft with a prior. The 3rd strike does not need to be serious or violent. It only needs to be a felony to qualify. If you are charged with a 3rd strike, your sentence will be 25 years to life in a state prison.

Once a person has one strike on their criminal record, the person will always be susceptible to enhanced penalties at sentencing if they pick up a future criminal case.

I can help. There are motions that can be brought to reduce the penalties in various ways. Sometimes, after an investigation of prior convictions, the convictions are not strikes at all. Sometimes a person is convicted of multiple counts of a crime such as robbery by robbing several people at the same time. Arguments can be made through proper motions that that should only count as one strike and the life sentence goes away.

Being charged with a strike crime, or having a strike prior and a new felony is extremely serious and requires a person to have an attorney who knows the law, understands how the court system can be used to benefit the client and has a lot of experience. Mr. Melnik has over 20 years of criminal defense courtroom experience in Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties and will give you his best efforts to resolve your case in the best way possible.