A California man sent to prison for 26 years for lying on a driver's license application won a new hearing on Friday in a case that revived debate over the state's "three strikes" law, which imposes lengthy terms on repeat offenders. Santos Reyes was convicted of perjury for filling out a driver's license under a cousin's name in 1997. Convicted of burglary in 1981 and armed robbery in 1987, he was sentenced to 26-years-to-life. Reyes appealed, arguing such a sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco ordered the case returned to a lower court to review Reyes's previous crimes. "But for Reyes' armed robbery conviction, Reyes would appear to have a plausible case for relief," Judge Harry Pregerson wrote. "Unfortunately, the circumstances under which Reyes committed the robbery are not sufficiently developed in the record for us to determine whether the offense was a 'crime against a person' or involved violence." --More 0002 Local Time 2102 GMT
