Prop. 36 is California’s light at the end of a crime-ridden tunnel: Now we need to fund it.

Orange County drug dealer James Lee Studdert’s rap sheet is 97 pages long.

In just the last five years, 54-year-old Studdert has racked up 86 prior drug convictions. Studdert has five prior strikes for residential burglary under California’s Three Strikes Law. He’s been to jail. He’s been to prison. 

But he hasn’t stayed there – and he hasn’t stopped committing crimes.

Two days before Christmas, Studdert was arrested again for drugs. He had a $5 bag of methamphetamine and a meth pipe on him, an Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy testified to at a preliminary hearing in January, the deputy noting that he had personally stopped Studdert at least 50 other times.

A beneficiary of California’s soft-on-crime experiments that have plagued the Golden State over the last decade, Studdert, and tens of thousands of other defendants just like him, have been fed through the revolving door of the criminal justice system by judges who rejected accountability and handed down credit time served sentences instead.

Over and over, Studdert kept breaking the law – and over and over again – judges – who are elected officials – kept letting him back out on the street. 

Californians took the law into their own hands last November, overwhelmingly approving Proposition 36 and rejecting the disastrous criminal justice reform implemented a decade ago by Prop. 47 which reclassified most drug and theft felonies to misdemeanors and took away the tools law enforcement and prosecutors need to hold criminals accountable.  

It was a resounding commentary by Californians who have had enough. Lawlessness is no longer an option. Accountability and consequences are making a comeback – one vote at a time. 

Voters in every county across California approved Proposition 36, the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, which passed by 68% of voters statewide.

In Orange County, 76% of voters voted for Prop. 36 which now requires judges warn hard drug dealers that they could be charged with murder if their drugs kill someone, provides treatment to drug addicts, and allows prosecutors to file felonies on repeat thieves. 

And the same judges whose slap-on-the wrist sentences that resulted in rampant homelessness, untreated mental illness, and out-of-control theft are now mandated by voters to fix it. 

It’s been a little over three months since Prop. 36 went into effect on December 18, 2024, and here in Orange County voters are getting exactly what they demanded at the ballot box: Drug addicts are getting treatment instead of going to jail and repeat thieves are going to jail. Our judges – along with the Orange County criminal justice system and community stakeholders – are holding criminals accountable as we lead the conversation of this new reality. 

Of the nearly 400 repeat theft cases submitted to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, more than 269 cases have been filed and dozens more are under review. Nearly 100 cases have been resolved with half of the defendants pleading guilty to felonies – crimes that before Prop. 36 would have been only misdemeanors.  

More than 1,200 drug cases have been filed, the majority of them filed as felonies, and 135 defendants have been assessed for treatment-mandated felony programs. Twenty-nine of those defendants have pled into a treatment program, including a 41-year-old homeless man who has had 21 hard drug convictions in the last two years and a 32-year-old homeless veteran who struggles with PTSD from his time in the military and opted into treatment to address those underlying issues. 

Some California counties have yet to file a single Prop. 36 drug case yet. Marin County Superior Court is threatening dismissing charges because it is an unfunded mandate.

For far too long, Californians have been forced to endure homelessness and rampant theft, and Prop. 36 appears to be the light at the end of a decades-long tunnel littered with the consequences of soft-on-crime policies. 

But treatment only works if Counties have the infrastructure, the programs, and the funding to provide it. 

Sen. Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, has been pushing for Prop. 36 funding to ensure every county has the resources to carry out the will of the people. Every Californian – and every elected official – should support Prop. 36 funding 

It’s time to finally get to the light at the end of that very long tunnel and restore California to the Golden State.  

Todd Spitzer is the district attorney of Orange County.