Justice Is No Game: A Briefing on Washington’s 3-Strikes Law from FIX 3 STRIKES on Vimeo.
Since the early 1990s, Paul Rivers, Stonney Rivers, and David Conyers have been serving sentences of 777 years, 77 months, and 77 days With No Possibility of Release for crimes classified in the lowest quarter of criminal seriousness under Washington law.
All are members of the same family. David was sentenced at 21.
Not one of these men has any conviction for a crime classified under state law as a Serious Violent Offense. In fact, the state’s Sentencing Guidelines Commission recommended that the legislature remove Robbery 2 – and consider removing Assault 2 — from the list of 3-Strikes crimes in 2001. These are the crimes these men’s 3-Strikes sentences rest on. King County Prosecutors no longer ask for the 3-Strikes sentence in cases like these.
In this film, these three men and several other current and former 3-Strikers and their family members speak on what led them to where they are today and about the law and its impact on them. King County Councilmember Larry Gossett, King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg, and Senator Adam Kline also speak. As does Carolyn Walden, a resident of the Central Area who was a victim of a strike crime and voted for the law – and does not believe in life imprisonment for these crimes.
There has been legislation to reform this law for over a decade. Legislators who support this reform have said it will happen only with a public outcry.
- Join the Rapid Response: Join over 1,500 people statewide and nearly 200 locally in the Rapid Response to urge legislators to fix this law.
- Come to the 3-Strikes Reform Benefit: 3-Strikes Benefit: $6 April 14: Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness keynotes.
- Organizations supporting reform: 30 Organizations supporting 3-Strikes reform or repeal