California death penal­ty oppo­nents filed a tax­pay­er suit on November 9 to block Proposition 66—the bal­lot ini­tia­tive pro­mot­ed as speed­ing up the state’s exe­cu­tion process — from going into effect. The suit was filed by for­mer El Dorado County super­vi­sor Ron Briggs (pic­tured) — who co-authored the mea­sure to rein­state California’s death penal­ty in 1978 — and for­mer California Attorney General John van de Camp. California vot­ers nar­row­ly approved Proposition 66, which was writ­ten by pros­e­cu­tors, by a vote of 50.9%-49.1%. The propo­si­tion makes a num­ber of changes to state death penal­ty appeals pro­ce­dures, includ­ing 5‑year time lim­its for the state Supreme Court to rule on appeals, short­en­ing fil­ing dead­lines, trans­fer­ring the ini­tial con­sid­er­a­tion of death penal­ty appeals from the appel­late courts to the tri­al courts, and requir­ing lawyers to take on death penal­ty appeals if they wish to keep court appoint­ments for oth­er crim­i­nal appeals. The law­suit argues that these mea­sures would ​“impair the courts’ exer­cise of dis­cre­tion, as well as the courts’ abil­i­ty to act in fair­ness to the lit­i­gants before them” and rais­es con­cerns that death row inmates will be assigned lawyers ​“who do not cur­rent­ly meet the qual­i­fi­ca­tion stan­dards.” Briggs was par­tic­u­lar­ly crit­i­cal of a new pro­vi­sion that requires ini­tial appeals to be heard by the tri­al court: ​“What 66 is say­ing is we are going to keep the case in the low­er court, and those same eyes that con­vict­ed the defen­dant are going to review the appeal. We believe that infringes on the con­sti­tu­tion and is flat out not fair.” The law­suit chal­lenges Proposition 66 on three sep­a­rate legal grounds. It argues that the propo­si­tion ​“ille­gal­ly inter­feres with the juris­dic­tion of California’s state courts” by revok­ing the author­i­ty con­ferred by the state con­sti­tu­tion for California’s appel­late courts to hear cap­i­tal habeas cor­pus cas­es and vio­lates the state con­sti­tu­tion’s sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers by ​“mate­ri­al­ly impair[ing]” the courts’ pow­er to resolve cap­i­tal appeals. It also argues that Proposition 66 vio­lat­ed the state con­sti­tu­tion­al require­ment that ​“an ini­tia­tive mea­sure may not embrace more than one sub­ject.” In addi­tion to the expressed pur­pose of ​“death penal­ty reform,” Proposition 66 includ­ed pro­vi­sions for vic­tim com­pen­sa­tion, changes in the state’s Administrative Procedures Act gov­ern­ing the adop­tion of admin­is­tra­tive reg­u­la­tions, and dis­band­ing the unpaid Board of Directors that gov­erns the state’s insti­tu­tion­al cap­i­tal defender organization.

(J. Ulloa, ​“Proposition 66 has­n’t been called by elec­tions offi­cials, but death penal­ty oppo­nents are already tak­ing it to court,” Los Angeles Times, November 10, 2016; B. Egelko, ​“Suit filed to block death-penal­ty mea­sure Prop. 66,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 9, 2016.) See Recent Legislative Activity. Read the Petition for Extraordinary relief here.

Citation Guide