State D.A. Assn. Rebuffs Van de Kamp in Dispute Over Crime Initiative’s Wording

After intense lobbying by Democrats and Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, the board of the California District Attorneys Assn. announced Friday that it will have no part of an effort to get the Legislature to solve an ongoing furor over a crime initiative.

Democratic Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, who is running for governor, has charged that the district attorneys’ initiative could endanger a woman’s right to abortion because its reforms to speed up trials would subordinate the state Constitution’s guarantee of privacy to the U.S. Constitution.

The courts have ruled that the state guarantee of privacy protects freedom of choice on abortion.

But Santa Barbara County Dist. Atty. Tom Sneddon said Friday the board had reaffirmed its earlier position “that Mr. Van de Kamp’s argument that this crime initiative somehow threatens abortion is completely without merit.”

Reiner’s Proposal

That stance prevented the prosecutors from endorsing Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner’s proposal that the Legislature take out the words on privacy that Van de Kamp is objecting to and then put the initiative, “word for word, and comma for comma” on the June, 1990, ballot.

Sneddon said earlier in the week that the Reiner idea was “doable,” but on Friday he said that after failing for years to get liberal Democrats in the Legislature to enact the reforms contained in the crime initiative, he has no faith that the lawmakers would do so now.

Reiner insisted Friday that his plan to have the Legislature put the measure on the ballot will proceed and that he hopes to have it taken up on Aug. 21 when the Legislature returns from its summer recess.

But a source close to the district attorneys’ group, who asked not to be identified, said Friday that the group will not agree to Reiner’s suggestion to simply remove the words in the measure about privacy.

The source emphasized that the district attorneys very much want to subordinate the California Constitution’s guarantee of privacy to the U. S. Constitution’s less-strict protections in criminal search-and-seizure cases.

If the Legislature wants to insert a sentence stating that the crime initiative’s intent is not to make abortion a crime, the source said, the district attorneys would probably accept that.

Another member of the district attorney association said Friday that the prosecutors were willing to consider Reiner’s idea until they read in the newspapers that Van de Kamp had said late Thursday, “It seems a consensus is emerging that affirms my legal view.”

“When we saw that he was gloating, already taking credit, that was too much,” said the source, who asked not to be identified.

Wilson, who is a Republican candidate for governor in 1990, said late Thursday night that he had urged the district attorneys not to support the proposed legislative solution.

Meanwhile, Rodger De Vaul, an Orange County resident whose son was murdered in 1983, said the crime victims’ coalition that is co-sponsoring the initiative will step up efforts to get the 650,000 signatures needed to qualify the proposition for the June, 1990, ballot.

“This has become a political football in the governor’s race. We have been lost in all of this,” De Vaul said Thursday night as he sat with his wife, Shirley, near pictures of their son, Rodger Jr., and other mementos in their home.

The trial of young De Vaul’s convicted killer, Randy Kraft, is now in the penalty phase, five years after the case began.

“We lost our only son and there still has not been any justice in this case,” said Shirley De Vaul, tears in her eyes.

The De Vauls vented much of their frustration at Van de Kamp, who they believe does not understand their initiative.