The initiative not only forced the California Supreme Court to reconsider many of its own rulings it also had to interpret language which was often unclear.įor example, the ban on plea-bargaining contained a loophole that allowed bargaining to shift from Superior to Municipal Court. Proposition 8, approved by a 56% vote in June, 1982, contained a dozen provisions across a broad area of criminal law: a repeal of the court’s liberal definition of insanity an attempt to ban plea-bargaining for serious felonies a requirement that criminal courts admit all “relevant evidence,” with certain exceptions longer sentences for repeat offenders declarations of rights to safe public schools and restitution for crime victims, and authority for victims to testify at parole and sentencing hearings. Conservative groups are campaigning hard, however, against Bird and other court liberals, stressing their frequent reversals of death sentences.
No justice has been defeated since the nonpartisan retention system was established in 1934. The court’s record in criminal cases will be at issue next November when Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and five of her six colleagues are on the ballot for yes-or-no votes on new terms of up to 12 years. But overall, prosecutors have fared well in one of the nation’s most liberal courts.
INSTANITY CASES GONE WRONG CALIFORNIA FREE
Those rulings were probably the most important target of the initiative.Īnother decision this year indicated that state courts may be free to apply more restrictive standards in admitting confessions and other statements by defendants. The ruling wiped out 30 years of decisions in which the court, applying the California Constitution’s independent ban on illegal searches, had gone beyond federal courts in excluding evidence-for example, in surveillance of restrooms, searches of garbage cans, full-body searches after minor arrests, warrantless inspections of bank records and illegal searches producing evidence against a third person. Supreme Court standards on police searches.
Perhaps most importantly, a 4-3 decision in February required state courts to follow U.S. The court upheld substantially longer sentences for criminals with felony records and narrowed the insanity defense. “The public knows it can play a role in criminal justice.” “The court can interpret Proposition 8 narrowly or broadly, but the genie’s out of the jar,” said George Nicholson, the 1982 Republican candidate for attorney general who was a principal draftsman of the initiative. “The net sum is that a lot more people have been in prison and there’s probably a lot tougher evidentiary rules in the courtroom,” said San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Brown, a Proposition 8 critic.
INSTANITY CASES GONE WRONG CALIFORNIA SERIES
Ironically, the far-reaching initiative was a reaction to a series of rulings by the state’s highest court expanding the rights of suspects in criminal cases. Provisions on sentencing, searches, prior convictions, self-incrimination and insanity have been narrowed in some cases by the court but none was ruled unconstitutional. The victims’ bill of rights, adopted by California voters three years ago, has survived largely intact after a year of crucial decisions in the state Supreme Court.
0 kommentar(er)
