Harsh punishment on Washington agenda.

A state Supreme Court ruling and a proposed initiative would make a powerful package of crime protection and retribution in Washington state.

The Washington high court upheld a controversial measure that allows the state to hold some sex offenders past their release date on a civil commitment. And on Nov. 2 voters will decide on a "Three Strikes You're Out" initiative that would lock up persistent offenders for life.

There is reason to believe that a public that has hailed the state's Community Protection Act, of which the civil commitment is a part, will like Initiative 590 (the proposed Persistent Offender Accountability Act).

Under the "Three Strikes" initiative, resurrected from a House bill that did not pass, someone convicted of a third serious offense would be labeled a "persistent offender" and get a mandatory life sentence without possibility of parole. The proposed measure is harsher than other states' habitual offender laws. All Class A felonies - generally violent crimes like murder, rape, controlled substance homicide, homicide by abuse, assault of a child, first degree arson and first degree attempted arson - would count. Manufacture, delivery or possession with intent to deliver cocaine or heroin also can be charged as a Class A felony. Other crimes listed as serious offenses in the proposal include second degree assault, second degree child molestation, second degree child assault, indecent liberties, second degree robbery, vehicular assault, any Class B felony with a sexual motivation or any felony committed with a deadly weapon.

Some of the state's lawmakers who agree with the persistent offender concept, however, are not comfortable with the long list of crimes defined in the initiative as serious offenses that add up to life without parole. Conceivably, a third bar fight could get you life without parole under this initiative depending on the charges filed. An analysis by the state's Sentencing Guidelines Commission said that the measure would affect a relatively small group, increasing the prison population by about 300 beds a decade from now.

The small impact numbers were predicted mostly because third felonies are infrequent, and because offenders committing the most violent of the crimes would probably get stiff sentences anyway. Roxanne Lieb, a former director of the Sentencing Commission now with the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, said that other habitual offender proposals made since guidelines were...