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SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court nullified part of California’s three strikes law Thursday, ruling it is cruel and unusual punishment to sentence people to life in prison for shoplifting. 

The ruling overturns 340 sentences for California defendants serving life terms for shoplifting under the three-strikes law and is expected to spark a wave of appeals by other inmates sentenced to life terms for other nonviolent offenses. 

Thursday’s decision by a three-judge panel of 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a major overhaul of the state’s get-tough-on-crime sentencing statute approved by voters in 1994.  

The ruling comes three months after a different three-judge panel from the same circuit ruled the three strikes law could produce unconstitutionally cruel and unusual sentences. 

That November ruling overturned a 50-year-to-life term for a San Bernardino County shoplifter. But that opinion – the first time any court declared a sentence unconstitutional under California’s three-strikes law – remained silent on the politically charged question of whether all defendants sentenced to life for shoplifting could be affected. 

The appeals court on Thursday clarified that question, expressly stating that shoplifters could not get a life term under the nation’s harshest repeat offender statute. 

“Our decision does not hold the California three strikes law unconstitutional, only its application to mandate a 25-year-to-life sentence for petty theft offenses,” Judge Marsha Berzon wrote for the panel. 

Erwin Chemerinsky, a University of Southern California legal scholar who argued the two cases decided Thursday said the decision will spark a flood of new legal challenges. 

“I think what you’ll see by the defense bar is lawyers arguing that other nonviolent crimes used for a life sentence is unconstitutional,” Chemerinsky said. “The punishment has to fit the crime.” 

The three-strikes law allows judges to sentence defendants to 25-years-to-life for any felony conviction if they have already been convicted of two serious or violent felonies. A serious felony could include burglary of an unoccupied house or shoplifting. 

State prosecutors can opt not to charge a third strike under the stiff sentencing guidelines. 

California prosecutors vigorously fought to uphold the sentences, arguing that the voters had approved the law and the defendants in the two cases decided Thursday had violent pasts. 

“It is a blow to the law, yes,” said Stephanie A. Miyoshi, a deputy attorney general who argued one of the cases. 

In the three-strikes case decided in November and the two cases decided Thursday, the judges did not indicate what sentence would be considered constitutional for shoplifting. That means more litigation will follow to determine what the appropriate sentences are for California’s 340 shoplifters serving life terms. 

“We can only guess,” Miyoshi said. The state is considering appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, she said. 

California voters and lawmakers approved the three-strikes law in 1994 amid public furor over the 1993 kidnap and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas of Petaluma. Richard Allen Davis, a repeat offender on parole at the time of the kidnapping, was convicted of murdering Klaas and sentenced to death. 

Last month, some lawmakers and activists said they were considering floating a statewide voter initiative that would make third strikes only violent felonies. 

The cases decided Thursday involve Richard Brown, who was sentenced to life after being convicted of stealing a $25 car alarm in San Joaquin County. Brown’s first felony was for robbery in which he used a knife and injured a victim. His other conviction was for hitting a woman with a pistol. 

The other case involved Earnest Bray, who has four Los Angeles County robbery convictions, some of them with force. He was handed a life term after shoplifting three videotapes. 

The cases are Bray v. Ylst, 99-56197, and Brown v. Mayle, 99-17261.