Three-Time Loser Strikes Out Judge Reluctantly Sentences Crook To Life Sentence

A judge agonized Thursday before reluctantly sentencing Larry Stapleton to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Spokane County Superior Court Judge Richard Schroeder wrestled with his decision because Stapleton, 33, was convicted of a crime that normally would be punishable by about 2-1/2 years behind bars.

But under Washington’s “three strikes, you’re out,” law, Schroeder had no choice but to send the Deer Park man away - for a clumsy robbery that netted $150 and some cigarettes.

“Is a life sentence appropriate based upon his third conviction?” Schroeder wondered aloud in court. “There’s certainly a very substantial difference between what the sentence would be without the enactment of (the three-strikes law).”

Defense attorney Scott Mason urged the judge to use discretion in determining Stapleton’s fate.

“I don’t think Initiative 593 can take away all control from you,” Mason said. “We believe there are mitigating circumstances and you should consider them.” Deputy Prosecutor Jack Driscoll, however, said the 2-year-old law strips away judges’ discretion.

“We’re tired of people who just keep committing these offenses,” Driscoll said. “The law was designed for people like Mr. Stapleton. It’s saying, ‘By the third time you do this, that’s enough.”’

Stapleton pleaded guilty in 1985 to first-degree robbery and again in 1989 to the same charge. In both cases, he used a weapon - first a gun, then a knife. He also was convicted of theft and forgery.

In the fall of 1994, he wrapped his face in electrical tape and went inside the HiCo Village on East Sprague. He sneaked up behind a clerk, but allowed her to run outside when she denied being an employee.

Then he walked up to another clerk, grabbed him by the elbows and led him to the cash registers.

He was unarmed, but Driscoll told a jury the degree of force used was immaterial. “A little force is still a robbery,” he said during Stapleton’s trial last summer.

Jurors agreed, convicting him of second-degree robbery. They weren’t told it was a three-strikes case.

Stapleton, who has an 18-month-old daughter, winked at his wife as he left court Thursday and said he’d appeal the sentence. A drug addict since he was 14, the former welder said his methamphetamine habit propelled him to break the law.

“What they’re doing is completely out of line,” he said Thursday in a jail interview. “There’s people running around this town killing people who get five years. I touch a man’s elbows and get forever? Where’s the justice in that?”

Criminal convictions prior to enactment of the three-strikes law shouldn’t be counted against defendants, Stapleton argued. If he had known they would, he never would have pleaded guilty twice before.

“How was I supposed to know what the voters were going to do?” Stapleton said. “It’s not right.”

David LaCourse, who wrote the three-strikes law and helped push it through the Legislature, disagreed.

“Two-strikers have been given fair warning by now,” the Bellevue man said. “Look at (Stapleton’s) history. The short sentences in the past didn’t work. He didn’t stop breaking the law.”

While Schroeder followed the law by sentencing Stapleton to life in prison, the judge still was concerned: Was the decision his or the Legislature’s?

A judge usually can hand down an exceptional sentence in any case - less or more time depending on the circumstances.

“But with this law, (judges) have no discretion in the sentence that’s being imposed,” Schroeder said. “And I worry that this is awfully close to depriving the judiciary from our established authority.”

Stapleton is one of three Spokane County men convicted under the law since its enactment in 1993. Statewide, about 70 defendants have been charged or sentenced as three-strikers.

The law is being challenged as unconstitutional in several appeals, including a Pierce County case that will go before the state Supreme Court on Tuesday.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Larry Stapleton’s three strikes April 25, 1985 - Robbed workers at a Taco Bell on North Division at gunpoint. A week later, he was arrested for robbing a clerk at the Jackpot Food Mart on East Wellesley in the Spokane Valley. Prosecutors dropped that charge in exchange for his guilty plea in the earlier robbery. He served about two years in prison. Dec. 10, 1988 - Robbed the Bonanza Bargains store on East Trent in the Valley at knifepoint, taking cash and clothes. He pleaded guilty to the robbery and served nearly three years in prison. Sept. 14, 1994 - Escaped with $150 after ordering a clerk at HiCo Village on East Sprague to open the register and hand him the cash. A jury found him guilty of second-degree robbery on July 28, 1995.