NOT long ago, a bomb blew off the front of the county courthouse
in Vallejo, California. The bomber was a man with two felony
convictions who, it was said, intended to avoid a third trial by
demolishing the courthouse where his trial was to take place.
Criminals in California have acquired the habit of thinking in
threes. Yet the law that obsesses them—the “three-strikes” law,
which mandates a sentence of 25 years or life in prison for
anybody convicted of a third felony—may be softening a little.
The California Supreme Court has now ruled that judges presiding
over such cases may exercise their own judgment in deciding
whether the third crime before them, or indeed one of the two
crimes committed previously, is a misdemeanour rather than a
felony.  Until this “clarification”, it was the district
attorney, not the judge, who decided the rank of the crime. If
the DA decided the stealing of a slice of pizza was a felony—as
one famously did—the law took its course. Moreover, the law had
never specified that the