Today's Sacramento Bee reports, "Judge backs wording of initiative to repeal California death penalty." It's written by Andy Furillo.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy M. Frawley issued a tentative ruling Thursday that rejected efforts by death penalty proponents to change the wording on a ballot measure that would repeal capital punishment in California.
Attorneys for the state prosecutors association – district attorneys Jan Scully of Sacramento, Steve Cooley of Los Angeles and Elizabeth Egan of Fresno – charged in a lawsuit that the ballot wording unfairly suggests that Proposition 34 would save money and force convicted murders to work in prison, which they already are required to do.
Frawley has scheduled a hearing for 10 a.m. today to give the prosecutors an opportunity to change his mind.
The judge said in his tentative ruling he "finds nothing false or misleading" in the ballot-label wording on the death penalty measure.
The ballot title and summary "arguably is misleading in that it suggests that the measure will impose new work and restitution requirements" on life-term prisoners, Frawley said in his four-page ruling. But he said the confusion is the result of "the measure itself," and not the attorney general's wording, which he said "accurately summarized what the measure does."
Earlier coverage of one challenge to the SAFE California ballot initiative is at the link. Earlier coverage of the initiative, Prop. 34, is also available.
UPDATE - The Sunday San Franicsco Chronicle reports, "Death penalty measure's accuracy upheld," by Bob Egelko
The state's ballot description of a measure to abolish California's death penalty has survived a challenge to arguments about the money Proposition 34 would save and its requirement that current Death Row inmates work in prison.
Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley upheld the accuracy of the state's official title and summary of Prop. 34 and almost all of the ballot arguments of its supporters in time for Monday's deadline for sending the materials to the state printer.
The challenge came from prosecutors and law enforcement groups. At a hearing Friday, Frawley ordered one minor change in the wording of the arguments, in a passage that declared the measure - which would cut current spending on trials, appeals and inmate housing - "redirects $100 million to law enforcement to solve rapes and murders."
"Redirects" is misleading, Frawley said, because the $100 million would be drawn from the state's general fund, not from any savings generated by eliminating the death penalty. He ordered the word changed to "directs" to make it clear that the money would come from a separate source.
But the judge upheld the state's title and summary, drafted by Attorney General Kamala Harris' office, that says Prop. 34 would save the state and local governments about $130 million a year. Frawley also upheld ballot language saying the measure would replace the death penalty with a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, and would require convicted murderers to work in prison to earn compensation for their victims' families.
Those arguments are potentially important because Prop. 34's backers are trying to focus the campaign on the costs of the death penalty and the alternative of a life-without-parole sentence rather than on the viciousness of the underlying crimes, a key source of public support for capital punishment in opinion polls.
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