In what circumstances will a judge strike a prior conviction for the same criminal offence?

aware of its discretion to dismiss the prior strike and thoroughly articulated the appropriate legal analysis required in making the determination of whether to do so. Thus, this is not one of those extraordinary cases in which the Romero ruling must be reversed because the record reflects that the trial court was unaware of its discretion to dismiss a prior felony strike. (People v. Philpot, supra, 122 Cal.App.4th at p. 905.)

The trial court appropriately considered the seriousness of the charged offense, indicating that it was at the top of the list of serious offenses. While it acknowledged that the prior felony strike might not have been the most serious of offenses, it noted that the record before the court did not fully indicate the underlying facts of that matter. Simply because the prior strike was remote in time did not mandate its dismissal. No case law compels a judge to strike a prior conviction because it is old. (See People v. Gaston (1999) 74 Cal.App.4th 310, 320 [reversed trial court order striking a 1981 prior conviction as an abuse of discretion because of the defendant's "unrelenting record of recidivism," characterizing him as "the kind of revolving-door career criminal for whom the Three Strikes law was devised"].)