In Rummel v. Estelle (1980) 445 U.S. 263, the high court addressed the constitutionality of a Texas recidivist statute requiring life imprisonment upon conviction of obtaining $120.75 by false pretenses. The defendant's previous offenses consisted of fraudulent use of a credit card to obtain goods and services worth $80 and passing a forged check in the amount of $28.36. (Id. at pp. 265-266.) The defendant argued life imprisonment was "'grossly disproportionate'" to the three felonies committed. (Id. at p. 265.) The court disagreed, holding the mandatory life sentence did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. (Id. at p. 285.) In Ewing v. California (2003) 538 U.S. 11, the plurality opinion, signed by three justices, upheld a three-strikes sentence of 25 years to life for grand theft. The court rejected a disproportionality argument though the defendant's current crime was a "wobbler" under California law. (Id. at pp. 19-20.) It explained: "When the California Legislature enacted the three strikes law, it made a judgment that protecting the public safety requires incapacitating criminals who have already been convicted of at least one serious or violent crime. Nothing in the Eighth Amendment prohibits California from making that choice." (Id. at p. 25 (plur. opn. of O'Connor, J.).) With respect to the particular defendant, it noted: "In weighing the gravity of Ewing's offense, we must place on the scales not only his current felony, but also his long history of felony recidivism." (Id. at p. 29.) It concluded: "Ewing's sentence is justified by the State's public-safety interest in incapacitating and deterring recidivist felons, and amply supported by his own long, serious criminal record." (Id. at pp. 29-30.) Justices Scalia and Thomas, concurring in the judgment, believed that the cruel and unusual punishment clause simply does not guarantee of proportionality. (Ewing v. California, supra, 538 U.S. at pp. 31 conc. opn. of Scalia, J., 32 conc. opn. of Thomas, J..) Thus, a clear majority of the United States Supreme Court would uphold a three-strikes sentence in all but an "'exceedingly rare'" case. (Id. at p. 21; see also Lockyer v. Andrade (2003) 538 U.S. 63, 73-76 state court opinion upholding three-strikes sentence of 25 years to life for petty theft with a prior was not unreasonable application of previous United States Supreme Court decisions.) In Harmelin v. Michigan (1991) 501 U.S. 957, a majority of the Supreme Court determined that the Eighth Amendment does not guarantee proportionality of sentences. (Harmelin, at p. 965.) Justice Kennedy, joined by Justices O'Connor and Souter, concluded that the Eighth Amendment prohibits only sentences that are "'grossly disproportionate'" to the crime. (Harmelin, at p. 1001.) Even those justices in the Harmelin plurality who recognized a guarantee of proportionality review stressed that, "'"outside the context of capital punishment, successful challenges to the proportionality of particular sentences are exceedingly rare"'" because of the "relative lack of objective standards concerning terms of imprisonment . . . ." (Ibid.; see also Lockyer v. Andrade (2003) 538 U.S. 63, 77 "The gross disproportionality principle reserves a constitutional violation for only the extraordinary case".) In Ewing v. California (2003) 538 U.S. 11 (Ewing), the lead opinion by Justice O'Connor, in which two justices joined her and two others concurred, confirmed that the "proportionality principles . . . distilled in Justice Kennedy's concurrence" in Harmelin v. Michigan (1991) 501 U.S. 957 guide application of the Eighth Amendment to challenges to recidivist sentencing. (Ewing, at pp. 23-24.) In Ewing, the defendant was sentenced to a term of 25 years to life pursuant to the Three Strikes law for shoplifting golf clubs worth approximately $1,200. He had suffered several prior theft-related convictions, as well as convictions for robbery, battery, burglary, possession of drug paraphernalia, unlawful possession of a firearm, and trespassing. (Id. at pp. 17-19.) In rejecting Ewing's cruel and unusual punishment claim, the Court explained that the Eighth Amendment contains a "'narrow proportionality principle'" applicable to noncapital sentences. (Ewing, at p. 20.) It does not require strict proportionality between crime and sentence, but only forbids extreme sentences that are grossly disproportionate to the crime. (Id. at pp. 23-24.) Ewing recognized that California's three strikes scheme represents the Legislature's judgment "that protecting the public safety requires incapacitating criminals who have already been convicted of at least one serious or violent crime. Nothing in the Eighth Amendment prohibits California from making that choice." (Id. at p. 25.) In Lockyer v. Andrade (2003) 538 U.S. 63, the defendant's two consecutive 25-years-to-life sentences, imposed for shoplifting videotapes valued at approximately $150, were upheld against an Eighth Amendment challenge. (Andrade, supra, 538 U.S.at pp. 66, 77.) The high court stated that one governing legal principle emerges as "'clearly established'" federal law: "A gross disproportionality principle is applicable to sentences for terms of years." (Id. at p. 72.) The court held that it was not an unreasonable application of this principle for the California Court of Appeal to affirm Andrade's sentence. (Id. at p. 77.)