Due to the serious penal consequences of the Three Strikes Law, defense counsel has the duty, prior to a plea or trial predicated upon convictions charged as strikes, to determine, on the basis of records which are necessary to an informed decision, whether the convictions are strikes under California law, in order to advise the client accordingly. It is ineffective assistance to fail to do so. Here the strikes were two 30-year-old Arkansas convictions, which were charged as violations of a section of the Arkansas criminal statutes which did not exist at the time of the alleged convictions and trial counsel permitted his client to admit them. As the trial court noted, “nobody in this courtroom really has an idea of what occurred in…Arkansas that gave you those convictions.” (Rehrg. opn.)
Case Summaries