Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Unfortunately, you probably can't. A wobbler is a case that can be charged as either a felony or a misdemeanor, but it is up to the prosecutor to decide which way to go. In your husband's case she evidently chose to charge him with a felony, and the jury evidently found him guilty as charged. That the charge could have been brought as a misdemeanor doesn't matter anymore.

Your husband was almost surely sentenced under California's three-strikes laws. Those laws are harsh and, in my considered opinion, grossly unjust when imposed for minor crimes like your husband's. But they are the law, whether we like them or not.

Because a 25-years-to-life sentence is mandatory for a third strike conviction, there is little you can do to have it modified. You certainly can't get the state to just release him unless you can successfully attack either the conviction or the sentence. There are two primary ways to do this.

If your husband was sentenced recently he may still have time to file an appeal. That is probably his best shot at getting some relief, though nothing you have said suggests he has grounds for an appeal. He might also be able to get somewhere by petitioning for a writ of habeas corpus, though here again I have insufficient facts and thus cannot say whether he has grounds for such a petition.

I deeply sympathize with the effect this sentence will have on you and your children. It is one of the many reasons why I oppose the three-strikes laws. At the same time, the fact that a defendant has children to support is not a very good reason to let him escape punishment. If that were how it worked, people with families would commit more crimes, secure in the knowledge that they would be punished less harshly than would someone without kids who committed the same crime.

It sounds like your husband was convicted of a felony with two prior "strikes" under the three strikes law. This is not a new law; it has been in effect for fifteen years.

It it was a third strike sentence, the sentence would be 25-life, which means be would become eligible for parole in 25 years, but there is no guarantee he will be released at that time.

He was most likely convicted of petty theft with a prior, which is a "wobbler," meaning it can be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor. Your husband's attorney probably argued that the new case wasn't serious enough to result in such a harsh sentence, but the judge apparently denied a motion to reduce it to a misdemeanor.

In order to appeal the sentence, a Notice of Appeal has to be filed with the court within 60 days of sentencing. In most cases where a person receives such a serious sentence, the Public Defender will file a notice of appeal automatically.

The judge also has the authority to recall the sentence within 120 days of sentencing, and could impose a lesser term. An experienced criminal defense attorney can assist you in exploring these options.