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At the end of round 3, Gee goes back to prison Robber must serve full 90 months By CHRIS BRISTOL The third time was definitely not the charm for Daniel Robert Gee. Convicted of robbing a terrified Phoenix grocery store clerk at gunpoint in 1996, Gee was sentenced Tuesday to 7 1/2 years in prison. It was the third time the 36-year-old Gee was sentenced in the same case, and prosecutors hope it will be the last. "You're a young man now, and you'll still be a young man when you get out," Jackson County Judge Patricia Crain told the defendant. Gee would be an even younger man when he leaves prison, were it not for Measure 11 and the Oregon Court of Appeals. At issue was the constitutionality of the 1994 voter-passed law, which sets mandatory prison sentences for 16 violent crimes. It also lowers the age of adult prosecution to 15 and bars early release for any reason. The first time Gee came up for sentencing, then-Judge Loren Sawyer rejected the 90-month Measure 11 minimum for first-degree robbery as unconstitutional, settling instead on a term of 51 months. The state appealed. The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed the judge and sent the case back to Jackson County for re-sentencing. But the second time around, Sawyer did it again. This time he rejected the law as "cruel and unusual punishment." Gee was mentally ill and a drug addict, he ruled. The state appealed again, and again the higher court reversed the judge and sent it back. By then, Sawyer had retired. In court Tuesday, Gee asked Crain to impose Sawyer's 51-month sentence. He claimed he suffered from exhaustion at the time of the crime and that he was "out of it" from a car crash. Gee also complained that the state got away with filing the second appeal after a deadline had passed. Crain told him to take the matter up with a higher court. In his waning days on the bench, Sawyer rejected Measure 11 as unconstitutional at least eight times -- more than all other judges in the state combined. Some judges and most defense attorneys dislike the law because they believe it gives prosecutors too much power to force plea bargains. Critics also say it treats all defendants the same, regardless of prior record and potential for rehabilitation. The Court of Appeals and the state Supreme Court have upheld the law, however. Sawyer has been reversed every time. Gee already has served more than three years. Under the terms of his original sentence, including time off for good behavior, he would have been eligible for parole in a few months. Under the terms of Measure 11, he still has 51 months to go -- the same amount as his original sentence. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA