California’s top court divided on ballot measure to speed up state executions

The California Supreme Court appeared divided Tuesday over the constitutionality of a ballot measure passed in November to speed up executions.

Proposition 66, sponsored by prosecutors, would require courts to rapidly review death penalty appeals, force more criminal defense lawyers to represent death row inmates and remove public review requirements for the state’s lethal injection procedures.

During arguments in Los Angeles, several justices said it was clear that the California Supreme Court could not meet the measure’s five-year deadline for resolving death penalty appeals without sacrificing other kinds of cases.

In response, lawyers defending the measure said the deadlines should be viewed as targets because there would be no consequence for failing to meet them.

A lawyer for the measure’s proponents even reminded the court that the provision setting deadlines could be struck down without affecting other areas of the ballot measure.

Several justices seemed struck by the lawyers’ concession that the deadlines were flexible even though the language of the initiative suggested they were mandatory.

“What exactly is the speed up?” Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar said.

If allowed to take effect, the measure could result in the resumption of executions within several months. It passed with 51 percent of the vote. A competing measure to replace the death penalty with life without parole lost.

Death penalty opponents sued to overturn Proposition 66, contending it unconstitutionally usurped the authority of the judicial branch and violated a requirement that initiatives be limited to a single subject.

Legal analysts said the measure, if allowed to take effect, would place a crushing load on the courts without any additional funding for more staff. New legal deadlines for deciding capital cases would leave the California Supreme Court with little time to decide civil disputes.

Appeals that now can take decades would have to be decided within five years. Trial court judges and intermediate courts of appeal also would be required to review capital appeals.

Supporters of Proposition 66 argue that major change is necessary to clear up a backlog of hundreds of appeals and begin executing inmates after an 11-year hiatus. California has more than 750 condemned inmates, the largest death row in the nation.

Proponents of the measure blame defense lawyers for requesting too many time extensions to file written arguments and the California Supreme Court for granting them.

Chief Justice Tani CantilSakauye and Justice Ming W. Chin removed themselves from the case because the lawsuit named the Judicial Council as a defendant. Both serve on the council, which would have to make new rules to implement Proposition 66.