'3 STRIKES' HITS HOME FOR FAMILY\Teen suspect could face life term.

Byline: Jeannette DeSantis Daily News Staff Writer

The night Jose Duarte Jr., 17, was arrested in a murderous crime spree, his mother tossed in her bed, unable to fall asleep.

Thoughts of her son kept Alicia Garcia awake until morning, when a call from police confirmed her fears.

"Every time something happens to him I could feel it," Garcia said last week, as she sat on Jose's bed with his younger brother, Manuel. "When they called that morning, I wasn't surprised."

Jose had run afoul of the law before. Twice convicted for robbery and attempted robbery, he had previously served seven months in Colston Youth Center, a maximum-security facility for juvenile offenders.

This time, Duarte was accused of robbing a man at gunpoint outside a Somis market - a crime committed as part of a Dec. 3 spree for which authorities hope to put Garcia's son in prison for life.

Although still a juvenile he'll be tried as an adult - and under the state's "three strikes, you're out" law he faces a term of 25 years to life in state prison.

"I know he should be punished for what he did," Garcia said quietly last week, pondering her son's chances of going to prison for life. "But not like this."

State prison is where he belongs, say prosecutors and police, who describe the Camarillo youth as a "classic gang member," hard to the core and beyond reform.

He will be one of the first teen offenders in California to be tried under the 1994 "three strikes" law, aimed at keeping repeat offenders behind bars.

The Ventura County District Attorney's Office is using a December appellate ruling in a Los Angeles County court that allows juvenile convictions to be counted as points when considering "three strikes" sentencing.

Prosecutors say the robbery in which Duarte is accused of now was part of a crime spree that culminated with the death of Jesus Zamudo Manjarrez of Moorpark, who was fatally shot at a traffic signal when the youths mistook him for a rival gang member.

Four of the five youths were charged in the spree.

"He was part of a crime wave that shot up a house, robbed someone and then killed someone else. How rehabilitative is that?" asked Ventura County sheriff's Sgt. Pat Buckley, who investigated the case.

"That makes him a little desperado to me," Buckley said.

Duarte has pleaded not guilty and is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail at the Clifton Tatum Center, one of Ventura County's juvenile halls.

In letters written from jail, he denies using a gun in the robbery.

And the boy whom Garcia calls a helpful son and doting brother, a boy she says was trying hard to succeed at Gateway Community School in Camarillo, also hopes for another chance.

"If the Lord ever lets me out, I will be like a newborn baby coming to the world," Duarte wrote in a two-page handwritten letter to his older brother after Christmas in jail. "I'll start over. . . . But what I heard in court makes me feel like I am never getting out. . . . I'll probably die in there."

Moved by the letters and his love for his son, Jose Duarte Sr. is bitter.

He believes his son's dire predicament is an attempt by the District Attorney's Office to send a message to young criminals.

"It is not so much what he did, but what it means to others," Jose Duarte Sr. said in Spanish. "They think if they make an example of him all the other gang members will stop what they are doing."

Jose Duarte Jr.'s prosecution comes as juvenile crime is on the rise.

Across the United States, juvenile arrests have soared from 83,400 in 1983 to 192,600 in 1992, while the brutality of the crimes, fed by drugs, guns and greed, have generated community fear.

In Ventura County, overall crime is down, but juvenile crime is up - fueled by drugs and a demographic bubble in boys between ages 15 and 19, which is expected to peak around 2004.

"They have literally got away with murder in the past," said J.P. Tremblay, the assistant secretary at the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency which oversees correctional agencies in the state.

"We think it is sending a clear message to juveniles that they will be held responsible."

Although there has been no independent study done on the deterrent effect of the "three strikes" law, Tremblay said the law takes care of the more immediate problem - getting a repeat offender off the street. Under the law, a person convicted of a third violent felony faces 25 years to life.

"The juveniles will get out when they are 40 or 45 and by then they tend to be mellowed out," he said.

There are no statistics on how many teens in California face the "three strikes" law, but studies show the largest group of repeat offenders facing the law are men between the age of 20 and 24.

At present, California Youth Authority officials said they have many youths in their system today that have three or more serious or violent felonies as juveniles alone.

"We have kids here that have done some terrible things, things that should be counted against them," said Tony Cimarusti, the assistant director of public affairs for the CYA.

In Ventura County, Duarte will be the first teen tried under the statute and will almost certainly not be the last.

Chief Deputy for the Ventura County's District Attorney's Office, Ronald C. Janes, said they are looking at other cases in which similar circumstances exist and where the "three strikes" law may apply.

"Unfortunately, we have grown a crop of teens that are not the traditional teens of the good old days," Janes said. "They are vicious, bloodthirsty killers who have no conscience, cares or concerns."

Critics say it is unfair to invoke felony convictions in Juvenile Court.

"There are different standards there," said Duane Dammeyer, the assistant public defender of the Ventura County Public Defender's Office.

"The issue in those courts are if the juvenile should become a ward of the court," he said. "They don't litigate the charges the same way as in an adult trial. There is no jury of their peers."

Dammeyer said it is absurd to put juveniles away for life for crimes committed as "immature" youths.

Dan Macallair, of the San Francisco-based Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice, said juvenile court judges tend to "rubber stamp" charges filed by the District Attorney's Office.

"Kids are going to build up a record faster than they might if they were convicted in adult court," said Macallair, who is the associate director of the center.

He said although the District Attorney's Office may be on firm legal ground in using a juvenile's record against them in these cases, the trend leaves no safety mechanism for them.

"I anticipate that we will see these cases with more frequency," Macallair said. "It is just the insanity of the day."

Jose Duarte Sr. just thinks it is unfair to use his son's past against him.

"He should get a new account as an adult," he said.

He points out that the young man's past wasn't always so bleak.

As a child, Jose Jr. was raised in a working class neighborhood in Camarillo. His family said they were close and were content with the little money they had.

Jose attended El Rancho Structured School from kindergarten through sixth grade. He played soccer at the local park in the fall and baseball in spring. There were family barbecues almost every weekend, they said.

Then in 1990, the Duartes divorced and the event became a defining moment in the young man's life.

"The divorce affected all of us," said Jose's older brother Juan Duarte. "I mean, people expect their family to be together for life."

Garcia moved out, taking the two younger brothers to an apartment nearby. Juan stayed at the family home in Camarillo with his father.

Thirteen-year-old Jose continued school at Los Altos Intermediate School in Camarillo and would routinely visit his father - and old neighborhood friends - on the weekends.

His family said it was then that Jose started to get into trouble.

First it was being inattentive in class, then ditching school altogether and finally getting into fights.

Juan Duarte said those old friends had now become their own neighborhood gang and Jose was loyal to them.

"He was always down for them, no matter what," Juan Duarte said. "These were his friends that he had grown up with."

Jose went on to Adolfo Camarillo High School, where the pattern got more self-destructive, his mother said.

Soon, Jose was arrested as the driver of the getaway car in a robbery. A month later he was arrested again when he tried to steal a youth's headphones.

His parents routinely visited him and offered their support during his seven-month sentence at Colston Youth Center.

It was there where Jose Jr. received counseling and confided to a therapist that he wanted to leave the gang but didn't know how, Juan Duarte said.

"My brother is not a hardened criminal, he just made bad decisions," he added.

When he was released, Garcia said she kept a close eye on her son.

He wasn't allowed to go out with friends and would stay home for weeks at a time. He watched videos, played Super Nintendo with his younger brother, or headed to the local basketball court with little Manuel in tow.

It's that side of Jose that his family will miss most, especially Manuel.

"He always told me that he never wanted me to be like him," Manuel said, looking at the floor. "I hope he is good in there so he can come back soon."

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Photo (1--color) Jose Duarte Jr. has been charged by Ventura County prosecutors with participating in armed robbery of a man outside a Somis market. (2--color) Alicia Garcia, with her son Manuel Duarte, says she felt Jose was getting in trouble that night. Tina Gerson/Daily News