Countywide : Wilson Opens Drive for Crime Measure

Flanked by more than 100 crime victims and their relatives, U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson kicked off a statewide campaign Monday in Anaheim for a ballot initiative that mandates sweeping changes in California’s criminal justice system.

Wilson, who is seeking the Republician gubernatorial nomination, is a key backer of the Crime Victims Justice Reform Initiative, Proposition 115 on the June ballot. He said the measure would ease the suffering of crime victims who often endure lengthy delays in court and must testify repeatedly before their assailants are brought to justice.

Standing before a semicircle of people who have been victims of violent crime or who have lost loved ones to murderers, Wilson said California’s criminal justice system is “needlessly lenient” on alleged criminals.

At another news conference a few blocks away, Mark Siegel, a spokesman for Californians for Privacy, a coalition of groups opposing the measure, said the proposal would “whittle away” at women’s right to abortion by scaling back the right-to-privacy clause in California’s Constitution so that it does not exceed federal standards.

In light of the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court might reverse the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion, Proposition 115 is “dangerous enough that women should be alarmed,” Siegel said.

Despite the profound changes in the criminal justice system proposed by Proposition 115, the debate over its impact on women’s right to abortion has taken center stage since it qualified in December for the ballot with more than 665,000 signatures.

Opponents include the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology of California and Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, a Democratic contender for governor.

Many of the backers of Proposition 115 led the successful charge for the Victims’ Bill of Rights in 1982, which mandated stiffer sentences for repeat offenders and broadened rules for the kinds of evidence admissible in criminal trials.

Proposition 115 would go further. In addition to sections designed to accelerate trials, it would increase the number of crimes subject to the death penalty and eliminate preliminary hearings for defendants who have been indicted by a grand jury. It also would impose stiffer punishments on those convicted of crimes involving torture and expand the definition of evidence that can be used against defendants at trial.

“The criminal made us the victim and the justice system keeps us there,” said victims’ rights activist Collene Campbell, whose son was murdered in 1982 and whose brother, auto racing entrepreneur Mickey Thompson, was slain in 1988.

“It’s a living hell,” said Ginny Petersen, who survived an August, 1985, shooting attack in Northridge by Night Stalker Richard Ramirez. “We don’t want to take away anyone’s rights. We just want to have as many rights as the defendant has.”

Wilson said Proposition 115 could not be used to restrict a woman’s right to abortion. Even if the Supreme Court reversed Roe vs. Wade, it would take a successful initiative drive to change that right-to-privacy clause and outlaw abortion in California, an event that “ain’t about to happen,” Wilson said.

But Siegel said the measure has other dangers. Through the elimination of preliminary hearings, defendants would lose their best chance to see the evidence, which might prompt guilty pleas, Siegel said. He said putting trials on accelerated schedules might also increase the immediate workload that the system has to handle, and increase taxes to pay for more courtrooms, judges and lawyers.