| "I thought I was going to cry too," said law student Reiko Rogozen, who started working on the case in January as part of Stanford Law School's Three-Strikes Project, which filed a writ of habeas corpus seeking freedom for Taylor. "He was scared up until the last minute that it wasn't actually going to happen."
The district attorney did not oppose the group's move.
Taylor quietly thanked the court and his lawyers for "giving me another chance ... and my family for sticking by me."
Taylor was arrested in July 1997 while trying to get into the kitchen of St. Joseph's Church in downtown Los Angeles. He told officers that he was hungry.
The church's pastor, the Rev. Alan McCoy, testified at the original sentencing that Taylor was often given food and allowed to sleep at the church. The priest described him as a peaceful man struggling with homelessness and crack addiction.
Taylor was convicted of third-strike burglary due to two robbery convictions in the 1980s, once for stealing a purse containing $10 and another time for trying to rob a man on the street. He didn't use a weapon in either case, and no one was injured.
During an appeal, a dissenting state Supreme Court justice said Taylor was a 20th-century version of Jean Valjean, a character imprisoned for stealing bread in Victor Hugo's novel "Les Miserables."
Judge Espinoza said the church break-in was not a crime of violence "but drug addiction and homelessness."
The three-strikes sentencing policies of the 1990s "produced inconsistent and disproportionate results," he said.
Taylor was taken back into custody and will be released when his paperwork is completed in at least two days.
His mother and siblings applauded during the hearing and beamed in the hallway afterward. His sister, Angela Taylor, remembered the day her brother called with details of his sentence.
"I thought he was lying. Twenty-five to life? That's crazy," she said.
Taylor got his GED at the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo.
"Even in conversations over the phone, he sounds way more mature," his sister said.
His 78-year-old mother, Lois Taylor, said her son was hungry for a home-cooked meal, so she's planning a huge barbecue to celebrate.
He plans to live in Pomona with his younger brother who runs a food pantry where he'll get a job.
Michael Taylor said he and his brothers are planning a West Coast cruise and if Gregory Taylor gets out before they depart Aug. 23, they'll take him along.
When running for office in 2000, District Attorney Steve Cooley often used the case as an example of how unfair he believed the three-strikes law was. Cooley said if the third strike wasn't serious and wasn't violent, three strikes should not apply.
Cooley said Gregory Taylor's release is "justice long overdue" because his crime was a minor offense.
But Cooley said the three-strikes law doesn't need to be repealed as long as prosecutors apply it "proportionally," taking into account the nature of the offense and the defendant's previous criminal record.
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Here's another article:
Third-striker at center of sentencing debate is released from prison by L.A. judge
August 16, 2010
A Los Angeles judge Monday ordered the release of a third-striker serving a life sentence for attempting to break into a church soup kitchen.
The case of Gregory Taylor, 48, who was mentally ill, drug-addicted and homeless when caught trying to pry open the church's doors with a wooden board 13 years ago, has often been cited as an example of California's three strikes law leading to disproportionate sentences for relatively minor crimes.
He told arresting officers he was hungry and wanted something to eat. At the time, a priest from the church, where Taylor was a regular and occasionally volunteered, pleaded that a life sentence “would not be just or merciful,” saying Taylor was “a peaceful man” and “a very good person who may have made mistakes.”
Judge Peter Espinoza was ruling on a habeas corpus petition for Taylor's release filed by two law students as part of a Stanford law clinic devoted to helping three-strikes inmates serving lengthy sentences for minor third offenses.
In the petition, the students contended that Taylor's public defender failed to adequately investigate mitigating circumstances, including his having been abused and neglected as a child.
The trial judge also incorrectly instructed jurors, telling them that if the circumstantial evidence is equal between the defendant's guilt or innocence, they should vote for guilt — the opposite of what he should have told them, the students wrote.
Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley did not oppose the petition. Cooley repeatedly cited Taylor's case in his 2000 campaign against his predecessor, Gil Garcetti, who was a champion of the three-strikes law.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/third-striker-release.html#more |
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And another:
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Three-strikes inmate welcomes his freedom
Gregory Taylor, whose last offense was trying to pry open the doors to a church kitchen, is released in Los Angeles after a judge grants a petition.
By Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times
August 20, 2010
Upon embracing her son for the first time in 13 years, Lois Taylor fingered the gray strands in his unkempt beard, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.
"Stop crying, Mom," her son, Gregory, whispered into her ear. "It's over. I'm out."
Gregory Taylor, who was serving a 25-years-to-life prison sentence for a three-strikes offense, walked out of a downtown Los Angeles jail Thursday a free man. Once outside, Taylor, now 48, looked up at the cloudless blue sky and took a couple of deep breaths.
A judge granted a petition for his release Monday, finding that because of his character, difficult youth and mental health problems he fell "outside the spirit of the three-strikes law." Taylor was a homeless man and drug addict when he was caught trying to pry open the doors to a church kitchen in 1997. He told the arresting officers that he wanted something to eat.
His two prior strikes, from more than a decade earlier, were a purse snatching and an unarmed, failed attempt at a street robbery to support his drug habit.
Over the years, his case came to exemplify the disproportionate sentences doled out as a result of California's three-strikes law. His case was taken up earlier this year by two law students working on a Stanford project helping three-strikes inmates.
Waiting for her son's release on the sidewalk outside the Twin Towers jail, Lois said the family would head straight to her Los Angeles home, where she would make him a home-cooked feast.
"I'm going to feed my baby," she said, joyfully adding that she would make for him "whatever his little heart desires." He liked soul food, she recalled.
The family never went to visit Taylor in his San Luis Obispo prison because he asked them not to, but she spoke to him on the phone every week, she said. She was relieved the hefty collect-call phone bills will be no more.
Taylor walked out to a gray lobby area of the jail's inmate reception center wearing jeans hanging loose on a lean frame and a checkered button-down shirt. He pulled on bright white new sneakers his youngest brother, Michael, had gotten him.
At a brief news conference, Taylor said he was glad to be with his family and enjoying Southern California's weather. He will be working with Michael, who runs a food pantry in Pomona, his family said.
To critics who question whether he will be able to live a law-abiding life on the outside, he asked that they "just believe and have faith."
One of those critics, the original prosecutor on the case, said Thursday that although he believes Taylor has served enough prison time, the facts have been distorted over the years by advocates appropriating Taylor's story to further their agenda.
"Obviously we could never go into the mind of Mr. Taylor, but I think that the facts strongly suggest that the motivation wasn't for food," said Dale Cutler, who retired from the Los Angeles district attorney's office in 2004. Cutler said he still believes Taylor was trying to break into the church to steal money or valuables.
"This has become a cause célèbre, a useful tool," he said. "Hopefully these people who have championed his cause will find some way to direct him to get help."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-taylor-20100820,0,831321,print.story |
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