Chelsea's Law and Petty Theft

The general effect of Chelsea's Law, recently signed by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is to increase the penalties for various sex related offenses. An interesting side effect however, is that the bill also amends Penal Code Section 666, the statute governing petty theft with a prior.  Before Chelsea's Law, any individual with a single theft related offense on their record could have a subsequent petty theft charged as a felony. Now, with certain exceptions, three prior theft convictions are necessary for a petty theft to be eligible to be charged as a felony.

Here's the relevant portion of the new statute:

SEC. 15. Section 666 of the Penal Code is amended to read:

666. (a) Notwithstanding Section 490, every person who, having been convicted three or more times of petty theft, grand theft, auto theft under Section 10851 of the Vehicle Code, burglary, carjacking, robbery, or a felony violation of Section 496 and having served a term therefor in any penal institution or having been imprisoned therein as a condition of probation for that offense, is subsequently convicted of petty theft, then the person convicted of that subsequent offense is punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or in the state prison.

This change likely effects 100's if not thousands of individuals currently charged with petty theft with prior cases.  There should be many criminal defendants all across California who should there felonies immediately reduced. Criminal defense attorneys need to be on the look out for these situations, as we all know Judge's and D.A.'s won't be doing it for us.