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Show Teit for Habitual Criminal Law A SALT LAKE COUNTY trial, scheduled to be heard In the near future, is expected to serve as a test case for Utah's habitual criminal law. This law, on the statute books of the state for at least 33 years, has been little used, if at all. The county attorney's office told The Telegram that they did not have any record of any case In the state of a conviction under the law. The test of the law should either prove that It ttefuHntniment foe sending proven Incorrigible criminals to prison for long terms or that the law la unworkable and needs revision. re-vision. The statute reads as follows: "Whoever has been previously twice convicted of crime, sentenced sen-tenced and committed to prison, In this or any other atate, or once in this and once In any other state, for terms of not. less than three years each, shall, upon, conviction of a felony committed In this state ... be deemed to be an habitual criminal and shall be punished by Imprisonment in the state prison for not less thaji 15 years." A later statute provides that the term of "not less than IS years" means from IS year to life. - . That's an excellent law, and makes possible pos-sible the Incarceration of a confirmed criminal who has proved himself menace to society for a long period of years. Only trouble wltb it Is the "not less than three years" term provision. When the law was passed many years ago, most felonies were punished by actual prison terms of at least that much time. . But nowadays, with so many sentences being Indeterminate, one to 20 years, criminals are regularly paroled before serving three years. The question is whether the provision pro-vision for three-year terms aa a prerequisite for , the habitual criminal conviction means actual serving of three years or whether sentence of from one to 20 years, etc. Is actually a sentence sen-tence for three years or more, regardless of the time served. Certainly It Is high time that thla matter be cleared.up. And If the courts hold that the law does not apply unless terms of three years or more art actually served, then by all means the next legislature should change the law to provide that mere conviction for felony, regardless re-gardless of the time served, la sufficient. That's the way the habitual criminal laws read In most other states, and they have proved eminently satisfactory and workable and a real protection to society from these criminals who have proved themselves Incapable of reformation. |