Public Defender Seeks to Void Newly Passed Justice Initiative

The Los Angeles County public defender on Friday filed the first legal challenge to Proposition 115, the sweeping criminal justice initiative passed by voters on Tuesday, asking the state Supreme Court to delay implementation of the measure and ultimately declare it unconstitutional.

The writ of mandate, filed at the Los Angeles office of the court, requests urgent action to avoid “chaos in the courts of California” as judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys grapple with the measure’s legal applications, reaching varying conclusions that will ultimately have to be resolved by the higher court.

According to Assistant Public Defender David Meyer, that is just what has happened this week as courts all over the county tried to cover the same ground. “It’s extremely confusing,” he said. “It takes a long time. It’s tedious . . . and expensive.”

A stay of the measure could be issued by the court as early as Monday when it convenes for other matters in Los Angeles. Or the court could decide not to take up Proposition 115 at this time, or chose a variety of other actions.

Similar challenges were filed after passage of two previous initiatives, the insurance reform law, Proposition 103, and an earlier criminal justice measure, Proposition 8.

In the legal documents filed Friday, Public Defender Wilbur Littlefield attacked the measure as an illegal change to the state Constitution and a violation of the “single-subject rule,” which states that initiatives must cover a single issue.

That same argument failed with Proposition 8, but Meyer said in a telephone interview that Proposition 115 encompasses 16 separate subjects. “We’re arguing to the Supreme Court that the line has been crossed.”

Among its provisions, Proposition 115, the Crime Victims Justice Reform Act, limits the rights of criminal defendants to those of defendants in federal court. It is aimed at ending delays in the justice system. Jury selection is speeded up and preliminary hearings after grand jury indictment are eliminated.

Meyer explained that under state law it is permissible to amend the Constitution, but in his view Proposition 115 goes beyond that.

“It’s really not an amendment at all,” he contended. “It’s a wholesale revision of the Constitution” that would require a constitutional convention.

The defense attorneys also are asking the high court to order judges not to apply Proposition 115 retroactively, as one of them purportedly did in a Van Nuys preliminary hearing this week.