Overview

The Stanford Three Strikes Project is the only legal organization in the country devoted to representing individuals serving life sentences under California's Three Strikes law. The Project represents defendants charged under the Three Strikes law with minor, non-violent felonies at every stage of the criminal process: at trial, on appeal, and in state and federal post-conviction habeas corpus proceedings. The Project also works, on behalf of its clients in collaboration with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, to reform the harshest aspects of the Three Strikes law.

The Three Strikes law was enacted through the initiative process in 1994. Today, it is widely recognized as the harshest sentencing law in the United States. Over 4,000 inmates in California are serving life sentences under the Three Strikes law for non-violent crimes.

Past and current project clients have been given life sentences for minor offenses including stealing one dollar in loose change from a parked car, possessing less than a gram of narcotics, and attempting to break into a soup kitchen.

In addition to our litigation and public policy work, the Project is deeply committed to a pedagogic mission of experiential clinical education. Project students enroll in an intensive seminar in advanced criminal law and take primary responsibility for litigating our cases. Students lead the Project's field investigations, draft legal documents, and argue in open court. Since 2009, Project students have led one of the country’s most successful criminal defense organizations, winning the early release of more than a dozen clients. Former student Ashley Simonsen, '10 says the Project offered her "the richest, most meaningful experience of my law school career. The work is not only important, but also complex and fascinating."

The project is supervised and instructed by Michael Romano, who founded the clinic with Professor Larry Marshall. Mr. Romano has been recognized as one of the top lawyers in California. Professor Marshall is a nationally recognized leader in criminal justice advocacy and public policy. He played a key role in exonerating a dozen wrongfully convicted death row inmates, and in leading the campaign to secure clemency for over 150 condemned inmates in Illinois. One of the aspirations of the Project is to adopt the clinical pedagogy, litigation strategies, and policy reform developed in the context of capital and innocence programs and apply them to the project's cases under the Three Strikes law.

News Features

Arguing Three Strikes | Video
The New York Times

Law Students Help Free Three-Strikes Offenders
Los Angeles Times

Criminal Law in California
The Economist