Davis Clears Desk by Approving Bill on Juvenile Justice

A 16-year-old repeat criminal charged with a violent crime such as murder, rape or aggravated kidnapping will face trial in adult court under a bill signed by Gov. Gray Davis.

The juvenile crime bill, which precedes an even tougher proposition on the March 2000 ballot sponsored by former Gov. Pete Wilson, was among the last of hundreds of bills sent to the governor last month.

Davis was required to act on all of the bills by midnight Sunday, but he delayed announcing some controversial decisions until Monday.

The governor’s office said the 1999 Legislature sent to Davis 1,286 bills and he vetoed 232. Davis’ vetoes struck down $1.3 billion in proposed spending, a spokesman said.

The juvenile justice bill, fashioned in the final days of the session from a collection of other bills that had been rejected, calls for toughened penalties against the worst juvenile criminals. Currently, most defendants up to age 18 are dealt with in Juvenile Court.

It also earmarked $11 million for programs aimed at making school campuses safer and averting violence.

Davis, a hard-liner on crime and punishment, signed the tougher-penalties provisions of the bill (SB 334) by Sen. Dede Alpert (D-Coronado), but vetoed the money.

In a message to the Legislature, Davis noted that his state budget already contains an extra $100 million for school safety initiatives.

The bill was seen as the Legislature’s response to the proposed juvenile justice initiative on the March ballot, which would allow defendants as young as 14 to be tried in adult courts.

An assistant to Alpert said the legislator will argue that “with this law in place, there is no need for the initiative.”

Other action on legislation:

* E-mail: Davis vetoed a bill (SB 1016) by Sen. Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey) requiring employers to tell workers that employee e-mail, electronic files or visits to Internet sites are subject to monitoring. Davis said workers understand when they accept a job that company computers are for business purposes.

Requiring employers to execute monitoring agreements with employees would impose an “unnecessary” burden on employers and set a litigation “trap” for bosses, Davis said. Bowen noted that bosses are prohibited from eavesdropping on employee telephone calls without advance notice and said employees should be given the same privacy protections against “ransacking” searches of computers by employers.

* Testing: Davis vetoed an effort by teachers unions, school boards and several school districts to factor out test scores of students with limited English skills who have been in a district less than a year. Davis said AB 144 would make comparisons to previous years’ scores impossible, thus undermining accountability. Supporters had recommended the students’ scores be reported separately because often they are unable to read the test. Opponents said the legislation was another attempt to weaken Proposition 227, the anti-bilingual education initiative.

* HIV: The governor vetoed a bill that called for reporting HIV cases to physicians by code instead of by patient name. AIDS groups said the codes would increase testing by reassuring patient confidentiality. Some doctors believe codes would hamper notification of potentially infected partners. Vetoing AB 103, Davis said it duplicated a grant the Department of Health Services is pursuing to fund a code system.

* Transit: Davis vetoed a bill to enforce existing union contracts whenever regional bus lines break away from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The bill, SB 372 by Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City), was aimed at making it more difficult to break up the MTA. Davis agreed to look into charges that the MTA has used the ruse of regional transportation zones to unfairly deny workers benefits. But he said he does “not think it is appropriate for the state to mandate how local public agencies conduct collective bargaining.”

* Access: Davis vetoed two bills, supported editorially by California news organizations, including the Times, that would have increased access to public documents. SB 1065, also by Bowen, required state agencies that store information on computers to make that information available in whatever format the agency uses. Davis said he vetoed the bill “to protect the confidentiality of citizens whose personal information is maintained by state departments.”

SB 48 by Sen. Byron Sher (D-Stanford) would have allowed citizens seeking public records to appeal refusals to the state attorney general, who would be required to return an opinion within 20 days. Davis said this put the attorney general in conflict with his duty as legal representative for state agencies.

* Redlands: Davis vetoed the so-called Doughnut Hole bill, AB 1553, by Assemblyman Tom Calderon (D-Montebello), which would have permitted the development of a 1,000-acre parcel abutting the city of Redlands in San Bernardino County. “This is a local land-use dispute, and locally elected officials should resolve it,” Davis said.

* Pesticides: The governor vetoed legislation by Assemblyman Kevin Shelley (D-San Francisco) that would have forced public schools to limit pesticide use. Davis said AB 1207 contained “such broad language” that schools would have to tell parents three days in advance if they were using such common chemicals as Raid.

* Images: Davis signed a bill to protect the use of deceased celebrities’ images without their families’ permission, championed by Fred Astaire’s widow. The bill, SB 209 by Sen. John Burton (D-San Francisco), increases the rights of heirs to control commercial use of images and extends all rights to 70 years after the star’s death, up from 50.

* Gambling: The governor vetoed several gambling measures, including ones that would have expanded wagering on horses, as well as increased the types of card games and the stakes allowed in card clubs.