The majority knew that the three-strike law was not cruel and unusual when it was determined that the Court could not give relief under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. As explained in the reading, Criminal Procedure, Andrade’s sentence implicates factors relevant in both Rummel and Solem. It was not contrary to our clearly established law for the California Court of Appeal to turn to Rummel in deciding whether a sentence is grossly disproportionate, (Samaha, pp. 571-572). By applying the gross disproportionality standard to Andrade’s punishment, the Court found that it did not apply given the fact that it was not an exceptional case. The dissent knew that Andrade’s punishment was cruel and unusual when Justice David Souter claimed that the sentence was identical to the one in Solem. Justice explained that Andrade was a serial offender like Solem, but he had no violent offenses against people. Justice Souter contended that the theory of incapacitation hypothesis would not support a person being sentenced to another 25 years in jail for a minor similar offense within two weeks. As such Andrade’s original sentence of 25 years could not be multiplied by two without resulting in gross disproportion, resulting in a few situations where the Eighth Amendment authorized the court to overturn a sentence. I believe that 25 years to life was not grossly disproportionate to Mr. Leandro Andrade’s crime given the fact that he had a lengthy criminal behavior. I know that it was not as this was Mr. Andrade’s third strike and he had previously pled guilty to a similar charge of burglary.
