Founded in 2006, it provides legal representation to convicts serving life sentences under California's three strikes law for committing minor, non-violent felonies.
In order to secure the release of its clients, the Project pursues resentencing hearings or constitutional challenges to the sentences imposed, either by direct appeal or post-conviction habeas petitions.
Typical claims include ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment, cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, and habeas petitions with newly discovered evidence under People v. Superior Court (Romero), 13 Cal.4th 497 (1996), and People v. Williams, 17 Cal.4th 148 (1998).
Despite facing difficult legal terrain under Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11 (2003), and Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003), in which the United States Supreme Court effectively foreclosed relief for the disproportionality of third-strike sentences under the federal Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, the Project has been largely successful.
[1] Previous clients had been sentenced to life in prison for minor crimes such as possession of less than a gram of narcotics, stealing a dollar's worth of change from a car, shoplifting three disposable cameras, writing bad checks, and stealing tools from a tow truck.