"Bump California death penalty measure from November ballot, group says," the Silicon Valley Mercury News report by Howard Mintz.
A law-and-order group on Monday asked a state appeals court to bump a measure off the November ballot that would repeal California's death penalty, arguing that it violates a state rule against proposing multiple reforms.
The ballot language is "deceptive" and conflicts with the state's limit of voter initiatives to a single subject, the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation argues in a petition filed with the Sacramento-based 3rd District Court of Appeal.
The foundation brought the lawsuit on behalf of Phyllis Loya, the mother of a Pittsburg police officer fatally shot in 2005 whose killer was sent to death row by a Contra Costa County jury.
The SAFE California Act would abolish the death penalty, clear the state's death row and replace capital punishment with life in prison without the possibility of parole. But the measure also provides for shifting as much as $100 million used for death penalty costs to a fund that would pay for solving murder and rape cases.
The lawsuit argues that the measure contains conflicting proposals that combine unrelated reforms into a single ballot argument. "This kind of manipulation ... is exactly what the single-subject rule was put in the constitution to prevent," said Kent Scheidegger, the foundation's legal director.
"Lawsuit seeks to keep death penalty off ballot," is the AP filing, via the Reporter.
A victims' rights group is seeking to remove from the November ballot a measure that would abolish the death penalty.
The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation filed a petition with the California Court of Appeal on Monday. The Sacramento-based group argues the initiative violates a state law limiting propositions to single subjects. If passed, the measure would abolish the death penalty and allocate $100 million saved from eliminating death row to law enforcement agencies to help solve murder and rape cases.
The group charges the ballot measure is driving a "wedge" between two types of crime victims, those who support the death penalty and those yearning for solutions to unsolved cases.
The Sacramento Bee reports, "Take death penalty repeal off California ballot, court is urged." It's by David Siders.
The Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation petitioned the 3rd District Court of Appeal Monday to remove from the November ballot a proposal to abolish the death penalty in California, arguing it violates the state's "single-subject rule" for initiatives.
The foundation said abolishing the death penalty while also authorizing the distribution of $100 million to local law enforcement agencies to help solve murder and rape cases violates a requirement that ballot measures address only one subject.
And:
Supporters of abolishing the death penalty said the litigation is baseless. Former San Quentin Warden Jeanne Woodford said in a prepared statement that the ballot measure is "about one thing and one thing only: ensuring that those who commit the most serious crimes in our state are caught and held accountable. Every aspect of the initiative is connected to that goal."
Earlier coverage of the SAFE California ballot initiative begins at the link.
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