Opponents say crime rates have dropped nationwide in the face of a declining number of teenagers and young men.Three strikes has reportedly brought mounting pressure on juries. Defense attorneys, who usually avoid mention of a client’s record, now make sure jurors know they are dealing with a three strikes case.California’s law defines certain violent or serious crimes as “strikes”. Anyone with one strike convicted of a new felony gets a sentence twice the usual. The third strike brings a minimum 25 years, or a doubling of the standard term, whichever is greater.. Heineken, the Dutch beer giant, yesterday announced that it was abandoning plans to build a brewery in Burma. The decision bowed to protests by human rights activists that had been gathering momentum throughout the world, but particularly in the United States.

It is a striking indication of the power of threatened consumer boycotts in the face of human rights abuses.
The surprise decision came only a day after its Danish competitor, Carlsberg, also revealed that it would be pulling out of Burma rather than face the risk of an international boycott of its products.Both retreats, while embarrassing for the companies, will be a morale booster for the pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who recently implored foreign governments and corporations not to do business in her country while it remains under military dictatorship.Until yesterday, Heineken had been forging ahead with a project to open a brewery in Rangoon by early next year. Through a Singapore-based affiliate, it would have owned 60 per cent of the new plant. The remainder would have been held by Burma’s Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings, which is controlled by the state.Confirming that Heineken was scrapping its proposed $30m (pounds 20m) investment first entered into 18 months ago, the company’s chairman, Karel Vuuresteen said in a statement: “Since then the public opinion and issues surrounding this market have changed to a degree that could have an adverse effect on our brand and corporate reputation”.Carlsberg had also been pursuing plans to invest in a separate brewery in Burma. The law, Democrats respond, violates “fundamental tenets of the administration of justice”.Supporters credit the law for a seven per cent drop in the state crime rate last year. With local elections approaching in November, Republicans plan to make the point that “Republicans are for law and order and Democrats aren’t”, said one legislator. Real simple,” said Assemblywoman Paula Boland.The vote was split along party lines.

The Bill sets the stage for a bitter partisan fight in the state Senate. In 1994 the Klaas case led to the passage of the notorious “three strikes and you’re out” law, mandating prison terms of 25 years to life for repeat offenders. Wide discomfort among judges and some prosecutors led the California Supreme Court last month to rule that judges must retain the flexibility to impose lesser sentences.
Surveys show that of long prison terms automatically imposed on some 20,000 felons, 85 per cent were for non-violent crimes from burglary to shoplifting. Republicans in the California state assembly this week, however, rapidly passed a bill reinstating a slightly modified version of three strikes, citing the need to keep “liberal judges” in check “We need the felons off the street. But the law that her death inspired is once again at the centre of a divisive and politically charged battle.