WA Governor Commuted Sentence Of Prisoner Serving Life Sentence. Now He’s Accused Of Murder.

In 1993, Washington state passed the Persistent Offender Accountability Act, the nation’s first “Three Strikes Law,” which was based on research from the Washington Institute for Policy Studies. The law said that anyone convicted of a third serious felony would be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole; no furloughs, parole or time off for good behavior.

One of the criminals used as an example by policymakers drawing up the state’s three-strikes law was a man named Stonney Marcus Rivers, as Paul Guppy of the Washington Policy Center pointed out. Guppy told KIRO, “He became one of the first cases in our state that was eligible for ‘three strikes, you’re out.’”