Abortion Rights Groups to Fight Crime Initiative

A coalition of women’s groups threatened Monday to go all out to defeat a proposed crime initiative that it believes could threaten a woman’s right to abortion in California.

And in a related development, Republican U. S. Sen. Pete Wilson acknowledged Monday in an interview that “some people will be confused” about where he stands on abortion as a result of the crime initiative, which he strongly supports.

Although Wilson is pro-choice, the confusion over his position could be a problem in his quest for the governorship in 1990.

According to opinion polls, a majority of Californians are pro-choice, but some women became concerned about their protections recently when the U. S. Supreme Court gave the states more power to regulate abortions.

What has Wilson suddenly on a hot seat is the Crime Victims’ Justice Reform Initiative, which would speed up trial procedures and shield crime victims from some court appearances if it qualifies for the June, 1990, ballot and is approved by the voters.

The initiative would also have the U. S. Constitution’s guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure supersede California’s constitutional right to privacy.

That could threaten a woman’s right to abortion, according to Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, a candidate for governor on the Democratic side. His charge to that effect set off the current furor.

At a press conference in Burbank Monday, Janice Kamenir-Reznik, spokeswoman for the Coalition to Protect the Right to Privacy said, “This initiative contains a hidden time bomb for the women of California.

“We challenge the proponents of this initiative to defuse the bomb before it detonates. . . . If they do not, we will be extremely outspoken against the initiative.”

Among the groups in the hastily formed coalition are the California Women Lawyers, the California Abortion Rights Action League, Business and Professional Women, Republicans for Choice and Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles.

With ties to a number of Hollywood celebrities, the coalition has the ability to raise money for TV ads directed against the initiative and against Wilson.

The privacy coalition wants Wilson and the California District Attorneys Assn., another of the initiative’s major backers, to take the words “to privacy” out of the following section in the measure:

“In criminal cases, the right of a defendant to equal protection of the laws, to due process of law, to the assistance of counsel, to be personally present with counsel, to a speedy and public trial, to compel the attendance of witnesses, to confront the witnesses against him or her, to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, to privacy . . . shall be construed by the courts in this state in a manner consistent with the Constitution of the United States.”

Gary Mullen, executive director of the California District Attorneys Assn., said that section is “aimed at a philosophy” most associated with former California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, who held that the state right to privacy supersedes the U. S. Constitution’s guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure.

But at the Burbank press conference Monday, constitutional law Prof. Erwin Chemerinsky of USC warned against tampering with the state Constitution’s privacy clause.

He noted that women currently have the right to abortion under the U. S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision.

“Here in California,” Chemerinsky said, “abortion cannot be made a crime (because of) the California Constitution’s right to privacy. . . . But if Roe is overturned and the Wilson initiative is adopted, abortion rights in California will be gravely jeopardized.”

On the other side, Kent Scheidegger of the conservative Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento argued that fears over what the crime initiative would do to abortion rights are “totally unfounded.”

But he said he had warned the district attorneys group last spring that someone might raise such fears if the section relating to privacy were examined closely.

The solution now, San Francisco Dist. Atty. Arlo Smith said Monday, is to amend the initiative and begin circulating it again to get the 650,000 voter signatures needed to qualify it by the end of this year for the June, 1990, ballot.

“We can’t let this become a referendum on abortion,” said Smith, who is running for attorney general in 1990, “and see the defeat of these badly needed criminal justice reforms.”

Smith said that today he will try to persuade the state’s 57 other district attorneys at their convention in Santa Barbara to take the words “to privacy” out of the initiative.

But Wilson said in a telephone interview from Washington that he would not agree to that.

“The people who are opposing this initiative know that if we withdraw it and amend it, we’ll never get it qualified,” Wilson said. “There will not be enough time. . . . This is a cynical ploy by Mr. Van de Kamp to defeat criminal justice reforms he and his supporters are opposed to.”

Those supporters, Wilson said, are trial lawyers, especially criminal defense attorneys, who Van de Kamp has acknowledged are steady contributors to his campaigns.

The criminal lawyers oppose one section of the initiative that would bar their participation in the selection of jurors and another section that would allow more hearsay testimony in preliminary hearings than is currently permitted in California courts.