Attorney General to Ask Supreme Court to Affirm Prop. 115 : Initiatives: Office wants justices to end a growing legal dispute. They seek to have the so-called crime victims’ measure declared constitutional.

The state attorney general’s office will ask the California Supreme Court to intervene in the growing legal dispute over Proposition 115 and uphold the constitutionality of the initiative, officials said Monday.

The move comes as opponents are pursuing a wide-ranging attack in lower courts on the sweeping, criminal justice-reform measure approved by voters June 5.

“We hope to have this matter finally disposed of and to eliminate any further unnecessary delay,” said state Chief Assistant Atty. Gen. Richard B. Iglehart.

State lawyers, Iglehart said, will defend the measure’s constitutionality on the basis of a 178-page analysis of the proposition prepared in recent weeks by the staff of Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp.

The analysis takes sharp issue with claims by opponents that Proposition 115 violates state constitutional provisions limiting ballot measures to a “single subject” and barring the voters from “revising” the Constitution by initiative. “We feel very confident with our arguments on this point,” Iglehart said.

The initiative, sponsored by local prosecutors and crime victims’ groups, called for a series of steps to reduce delay in the criminal justice process and to repeal what backers contended were excessive protections granted to defendants by state courts. Under the measure, the state Constitution was amended to limit defendants’ rights to those mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court under the federal Constitution.

For example, police, governed by the less-restrictive rulings of the federal high court, would have greater authority to move against the owners of marijuana patches spotted from the air.

Since its passage, the initiative has been opposed in several lawsuits--including two broad constitutional challenges dealing with the “single-subject” and “no-revision” rules that are pending in appeals courts in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

In the San Francisco case, opponents of the measure also claim it goes beyond affecting the 12 state constitutional rights it specifically lists as subject to U.S. Supreme Court rulings. In fact, the foes assert, the initiative is worded so broadly that it also sweeps away another 20 state constitutional guarantees that have given Californians more protection than they receive under the federal Constitution--including greater freedom of speech and religion.

But state officials named as defendants in the suit are expected to ask the state high court today to take immediate jurisdiction of the case and reject the constitutional challenge to the initiative.

The attorney general’s analysis of the measure, included in a manual prepared for state and local prosecutors, disputes foes’ contentions that the initiative violates either the “single-subject” rule or the prohibition against a “revision” of the Constitution by initiative.

The manual, prepared by a team of 24 lawyers led by Assistant Atty. Gen. John H. Sugiyama, says the measure easily meets a court-established test that its provisions be “reasonably germane” to each other.

Nor, the analysis says, is the measure’s change in the state Constitution so extensive that it amounts to a “revision” rather than an “amendment.” The manual notes that only once--in 1948--has the state Supreme Court invalidated a measure as a “revision.” And when the constitutional right of the initiative is at stake, the state lawyers said, courts should interfere only when it is “clear beyond question” that a measure is invalid.

The attorney general’s analysis also disputes the contention the initiative effectively repeals more than 30 state constitutional rights. The clear wording of the initiative limits its effect to the 12 criminal defendants’ rights that are specifically listed--such as equal protection and due process of law--the state lawyers said.