Jailed for Life, Migrant Says Justice Was Too Blind

[lawofcolor] Jailed for Life, Migrant Says Justice Was Too Blind

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via common dreams - http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0914-07.htm


Published on Thursday, September 14, 2006 by the Inter Press Service
Jailed for Life, Migrant Says Justice Was Too Blind
by Aaron Glantz


SAN FRANCISCO, California - A California immigrant serving a life
sentence for
lying to the Department of Motor Vehicles got a day in court Wednesday.
Santos
Reyes has already served six years for that crime, which he has never
denied.


"They were trying to get a driver's license for his cousin but his
cousin can't
read," said Peter Camejo, the Green Party candidate for California
governor and
a spokesman for the campaign to free Reyes. "The crime that Santos did
was to
take the written test for his cousin and he got caught doing it."


"They got suspicious and they started asking him questions, so he just
admitted
it," Camejo told IPS. "He said he was just trying to get a driver's
license for
his cousin because they need it for work to feed his family. So they
called the
police and the police arrested him."


When they took Reyes to jail, the police found he had been convicted of
felonies
twice before. In 1981, at age 17, he was convicted of stealing a radio.
Five
years later he was convicted of robbery. He then had no offenses for
the next 11
years, a period in which he gained employment as a roofer, got married
and
fathered two children.


But as an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, he couldn't drive legally
and
neither could his cousin.


"He had a criminal record so to try to get [even] a fake driver's
license under
his name was very difficult," Camejo said. "There are many tricks that
people
use to get driver's licenses. You understand what happens if the police
catch
you driving illegally. They take your car and it's not returned to you.
The
state sells it and keeps the money. It's a form of robbery."


California has the toughest "three strikes" law in the nation. And
under the
terms of the law, everyone convicted of a third felony -- no matter
what kind --
serves a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life. According to the group
Families
to Amend California's Three Strikes (FACTS), 4,500 California prisoners
are
currently serving life sentences for crimes as minor as stealing a
slice of
pizza.


Dororthy Erskine, 72, turned out for Reyes' hearing in Los Angeles
Wednesday.
Her nephew is currently serving a life sentence for aiding and abetting


shoplifting.


"He was a cocaine addict and this led to his criminal activity," she
said. "In
1994, he was in a mall in Cerritos (outside Los Angeles) and these two
women
were on the same floor as him taking sheets and they stopped him when
he left
the store. Even though he didn't have any merchandise from the store he
was
arrested for aiding and abetting shoplifting and he has been in prison
ever
since."


The severity of California's three strikes law makes it unlikely Santos
Reyes
will be freed by judicial order. While the Third District Court of
Appeals in
Los Angeles agreed to hear the case, Reyes's legal team believes their
best hope
lies in convincing California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to
commute his
sentence to time served.


At the same time, FACTS wants to change California's three strikes law
so that
only serious or violent felonies can send criminals to prison for life.


Opponents of the three strikes law also argue for changes in
immigration law so
that undocumented immigrants like Santos Reyes don't have to lie to get
a
driver's license.


But the backlash has been strong to such proposals. In 2003, former
Hollywood
actor Schwarzenegger ousted incumbent Democrat Gray Davis pledging to
revoke
driver's license privileges for undocumented immigrants. In 2004, the
state of
Arizona passed Proposition 200, which barred all state services for
undocumented
immigrants. This November, Arizona voters will consider a proposition
forbidding
judges to grant bail to the undocumented.


Moreover, on Tuesday, anti-immigrant crusader Randy Graf won a hotly
contested
Congressional primary battle with the help of the Minutemen, vigilantes
who have
begun to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border.


"We know that large numbers of people who are coming to this country
lately are
not just immigrants looking for a job," Graf told IPS after winning the


Republican nomination for an Arizona House district that includes the
city of
Tuscon.


"The crime rate and statistics along the border around here and in
Texas with
drug smuggling all bring us to the same conclusion that we need to
secure the
border and stop this invasion," he said.


Despite the backlash, immigrants and their allies are optimistic about
success
in the future. The national Republican Party spent 122,000 dollars to
support
Graf's opponent, fearing a Graf win would push a growing population of
Latino
voters away from voting for Republicans. After California passed the
anti-immigrant Proposition 187 in 1994, Latino voter registration
soared --
their votes have helped put California firmly in the Democratic column.


Copyright © 2006 IPS - Inter Press Service


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