A Juror Balks at Calling ‘Strike Three’ : Justice: The law is immoral, allowing no room for judgment in passing a life sentence.

This morning, I sent a man to prison for the rest of his life.

This afternoon, I will return to my life, my job, and talk about what I have done.

I do not know what I would say to this man, Victor Pacheco. He did not harm me, nor, as far as I know, has he ever harmed any other human being. Yet I participated in a process that will deliver him to a prison where he will celebrate his 33rd birthday and every one thereafter, perhaps until he has no more.

You see, Victor Pacheco was just one more piece of human detritus to be thrown into the garbage pit we call prison under an immoral law, the three-strikes law. And I, as a juror upholding this law, put him there.

I could justify my actions, tell him that this is a nation of laws, not people. I could say that had I not consented to send him away, I, too, would have violated the law. I could protest that the law required us to reduce his existence--all that he has been and will be--to two simple questions: Did he commit the crime with which he is charged, and is he the same Victor Pacheco who pleaded guilty to robberies in 1984 and 1990?

I could tell this young father and his wife, who wept as we the jury affirmed our decision, that our justice system is the best on earth. But were he to challenge my belief based on his present circumstances, I could not disagree.

According to the testimony, Pacheco was walking down an East L.A. street one sunny afternoon when stopped by the police because he matched the description of a robbery suspect. He was charged with possession of heroin when, police said, five small balloons containing the drug were found in his mouth. His lawyer ably pointed out inconsistencies in the accounts the officers gave, which made some of us jurors question the fairness of convicting Pacheco of a charge unrelated to the one for which he was initially detained. But the conclusion that he had heroin in his possession--the only question before us--was inescapable.

How is it just, Pacheco might wonder, that society could so dramatically change the consequences of something he did, and was punished for, years ago? In 1985, when he first pleaded guilty to robbery, he did not know that his seemingly rational decision to admit guilt rather than demand a jury trial would one day be considered his “first strike” in a surreal perversion of the civilized sport of baseball. In 1991, when he again pleaded guilty to several counts of robbery, no one warned him that he was one step away from forfeiting his liberty forever.

Since that time, he had started a family and generally seemed to have gotten on with his life, though admittedly continuing his long-standing heroin habit. How can it be fair, he might ask, to add a drug offense committed just months after “three strikes” was enacted to crimes committed years earlier, to deem him “out,” a life loser.

To that, I have no adequate response other than to say that the legal system in this country has become one of laws and not of justice, of form over substance. It is no fault of the excellent judge or lawyers on either side; they are merely the sanitation engineers of this particular disposal system, given little discretion but to cart away what “the people” judge to be disposable. The law forbids jurors from considering the consequences of our decision. So Victor Pacheco’s life sentence is no fault of mine.

Yet how can it not be?

I have today participated in a process I believe in to enforce a law I do not.

Although I played by the rules, I believe that society lost along with Victor Pacheco today.

In the weeks since I cast the 12th vote to send Victor Pacheco away for life, I have learned more about him. I now know that he committed two crimes in addition to those put before us as his jury, a total of six prior charges. And now I know that he used a weapon in the commission of at least two robberies. All of which means only what his own lawyer admitted to us in court: that none of us was likely to ask Pacheco over for Thanksgiving dinner.

Imperfect though he may be, Pacheco has a home and a family who have not given up on him. I, a stranger, have had to play a role in removing this young man from his family until, at the very least, his children are the age he is now.

Because I took an oath to play by the rules, I had to enforce a twisted law. How can it be just to crumple and toss away a man because of his past? Had he not a past, he might have been sent to drug rehabilitation or given a modest sentence for feeding his addiction. Instead, the people who voted for three strikes called on me to do their dirty work.

I have come as near as one can to taking a man’s life without killing him.

I hope that Victor Pacheco understands why I had to commit an immoral act at his expense. And I pray that our system will someday again be one of justice and not just law.