Timothy Barnett is a con man. He has been convicted twice of using fraud to steal from homeowners.

Well, he appears to be back at his game, to the tune of 23 counts, and the DA has decided to pursue him with the 3^rd strike law which would put him in prison for the rest of his life.

I think that 3^rd strike laws are generally bad ideas, and the one in California is worse, but this is the sort of guy who makes me want to throw the book at him:

Timothy Barnett spent nearly five years in state prison for a 1990s foreclosure rescue scam in which he conned homeowners out of tens of thousands of dollars. Now, prosecutors say, he has been at it again, targeting residents in the same South Los Angeles neighborhood he fleeced before.

But this time, the state is unleashing one of its more powerful weapons against him. The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has charged Barnett under California’s much-debated three-strikes law. Usually aimed at offenders with a history of violent crime, it is rarely used for white-collar offenses such as fraud.

Arrested in April, the 47-year-old Barnett is charged with 23 felonies — including theft from the elderly, identity theft and real estate fraud — for allegedly tricking five people into unknowingly granting him title to their homes. He has pleaded not guilty.

Some experts said the case would be one of the first times a person charged with a white-collar crime was prosecuted under the state’s three-strikes law. If convicted, Barnett could face life in prison.

I do think if you have 3^rd strike laws, and I don’t think that you should, then it should be applied to white collar criminals.

But I think that 3^rd strike laws are yet another case of what H.L. Menken, the Bard of Baltimore, meant when he said, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”