Judge orders release of prisoner sentenced to 25 years-to-life for stealing food from church

Judge frees thief who got 25 years on 3rd strike

LOS ANGELES — A judge on Monday ordered the release of a man who spent 13 years behind bars for trying to steal food from a church, his third offense under California’s three-strikes law.

Tears streamed down Gregory Taylor’s face when Judge Peter Espinoza amended his sentence to eight years already served. The judge asked a bailiff to get him a tissue.

He was taken back into custody and will be released when his paperwork is completed in at least two days.

Family members and supporters applauded and the 47-year-old Taylor quietly thanked the court and his lawyers for “giving me another chance … and my family for sticking by me.”

The Stanford Law Project filed a writ of habeas corpus seeking freedom for Taylor, who was sentenced in 1997 to 25 years to life under California’s three-strikes law. The district attorney did not oppose the group’s move.

“I thought I was going to cry too,” said Stanford Law School student Reiko Rogozen, who started working on the case in January. “He was scared up until the last minute that it wasn’t actually going to happen.”

Taylor was arrested 13 years ago while trying to pry open a screen above the kitchen door at St. Joseph’s Church in downtown Los Angeles.

He was convicted of third-strike burglary due to convictions of robbery twice in the 1980s, once for stealing a purse containing $10 and once for trying to rob a man on the street. He didn’t use a weapon in either case, and no one was injured.

The Rev. Alan McCoy testified Taylor was often given food and allowed to sleep at the church. He told the court that Taylor was a peaceful man who made mistakes and was struggling with homelessness and crack addiction.

Judge Espinoza quoted from McCoy’s testimony Monday and said the three-strikes sentencing policies of the 1990s “produced inconsistent and disproportionate results.”

It was not uncommon for prosecutors to insist on sentences of 25-years-to-life at the time, he said, but “the fact that the law was so new produced unintended — at least unanticipated — consequences.”

Taylor’s attorney argued that the crime was at most misdemeanor trespassing because Taylor thought he had the right to take food, but the judge at the time refused to let him present that argument to the jury.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal upheld that decision, questioning whether a “claim of right” defense could ever be valid and saying Taylor could not have honestly believed he had the right to break into the church. The state Supreme Court ordered the lower court to reconsider the conviction and life sentence.

A dissenting justice said Taylor was a 20th-century version of Jean Valjean, a character imprisoned for stealing bread in Victor Hugo’s novel “Les Miserables.”

When running for office in 2000, District Attorney Steve Cooley often used Taylor’s case as an example of how unfair he believed the three-strikes law was. He said if the third strike wasn’t serious and wasn’t violent, three strikes should not apply.

Cooley said the law doesn’t need to be repealed as long as prosecutors apply it “proportionally,” taking into account the nature of the offense and the defendant’s previous criminal record.

“Virtually all elected DAs are embracing a policy similar to what I adopted when I took office. They all now realize that if they abuse the law with draconian sentences for minor offenses, they will lose the law,” he said. “The public accepts it as something they want as an appropriate tool against recidivism.”

After the hearing, Taylor’s sister Angela said the whole family was blindsided by the long prison term. She remembered the day her brother called with details of his sentence.

“I thought he was lying. Twenty-five to life? That’s crazy,” she said.

His 78-year-old mother, Lois, hadn’t seen her son in 13 years, “but he’s the same Greg,” she said.

McCoy, the priest, who testified for Taylor, died two years ago.

“If he was living now, it would be the most beautiful thing,” she said.

Taylor got his GED in prison and participated in other self-improvement programs at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo.

“Even in conversations over the phone, he sounds way more mature,” his sister said.

He told his mother he’s looking forward to a homecooked meal, so the family is planning a huge barbeque.

He plans to live in Pomona with his younger brother, Michael Taylor, who runs a food pantry where he’ll get a job.

Michael Taylor said he and his brothers are planning a West Coast cruise and if Taylor gets out before Aug. 23, they’ll take him along.

Gabriel Martinez, a law student with the Stanford Three-Strikes Project, said his classmates have identified 400 cases in which defendants received harsh sentences across the state.

The Stanford Three Strikes Project recently lost two cases — one for a man who stole a pair of socks and another for a man convicted of having 0.1 grams of methamphetamine, Martinez said.

“We’ll celebrate this case for certain, but there’s a lot of work to be done to reform the three-strikes law,” Martinez said.