Court Opinion

ID: 9789219
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:30:44.140516+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:15.421417
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J .
I concur in the judgment and, in all but one respect, in the majority opinion’s reasoning. I write separately to explain my reasons for agreeing that Proposition 21 does not violate the single-subject limitation imposed on initiative measures by article II, section 8, subdivision (d) of the California Constitution.
As the majority explains (maj. opn., ante, at p. 576), the problems of violent gang crime and juvenile crime are so closely interrelated that they can reasonably be considered the common subject Proposition 21 seeks to address. The difficulty, in terms of the single-subject rule, comes with those provisions changing the “Three Strikes” law’s “lock-in” date (Pen. Code, §§ 667.1, 1170.125)1 and amending the statutory lists of serious (§ 1192.7, subd. (c)) and violent (§ 667.5, subd. (c)) felonies that, among their other roles in sentencing, define the prior convictions that qualify recidivists for sentencing under the Three Strikes law. I would analyze this aspect of the issue somewhat differently than the majority.
By Proposition 21, the voters added to the lists in sections 1192.7 and 667.5 certain offenses clearly related to gangs and/or juvenile crime. Newly designated as serious felonies under section 1192.7 were, for example, felonies committed in promotion of a pattern of criminal gang activity (id., subd. (c)(28)), shooting from a vehicle or at an inhabited dwelling or vehicle (id., subd. (c)(33), (36)), intimidation of witnesses (id., subd. (c)(37)), and making criminal threats (id., subd. (c)(38)). Newly designated as violent felonies under section 667.5 were, for example, extortion in promotion of criminal gang activity (id., subd. (c)(19)) and threatening victims or witnesses in promotion of criminal gang activity (id., subd. (c)(20)).
Qualifying these felonies as “strikes,” so as to impose greater punishment on those who repeatedly committed such offenses, was a measure reasonably germane to Proposition 21’s purpose of deterring gang and juvenile violence. Adding to the lists in sections 667.5 and 1192.7 would not, by itself, accomplish that task, because the cross-references in the Three Strikes law were statutorily frozen as of June 30, 1993. (See § 667, subd. (h); Stats. 1994, Initiative Statutes, Prop. 84, § 2, p. A-316.) Changing the lock-in date was therefore necessary, though it had the collateral effect of qualifying as *583strikes all offenses added to sections 1192.7 and 667.5 between the initial 1993 date and the passage of Proposition 21, not just those added by the initiative.
As the majority recognizes (maj. opn., ante, at pp. 578-579), that an initiative measure has collateral effects outside its subject area does not put the measure in violation of the single-subject rule. (.Kennedy Wholesale, Inc. v. State Bd. of Equalization (1991) 53 Cal.3d 245, 254-255 [279 Cal.Rptr. 325, 806 P.2d 1360]; Amador Valley Joint Union High Sch. Dist. v. State Bd. of Equalization (1978) 22 Cal.3d 208, 230 [149 Cal.Rptr. 239, 583 P.2d 1281].) That some offenses not particularly related to juvenile and gang violence became strikes by virtue of Proposition 21’s change in the lock-in date, therefore, would not invalidate the measure under the single-subject rule. For this reason, we need not determine whether assault with intent to commit rape, mayhem, sodomy, or oral copulation (§ 1192.7, subd. (c)(29)), a set of crimes already listed in section 1192.7 by virtue of 1998 amendments (Stats. 1998, ch. 936, § 13.5), though qualified as a strike only by virtue of Proposition 21’ s change in the lock-in date, is germane to Proposition 21’ s subject.
Of the offenses that were added to sections 1192.7 or 667.5 by Proposition 21, a few are of doubtful germaneness to the initiative’s gang and juvenile violence subject matter. In particular, assault with a deadly weapon (§ 1192.7, subd. (c)(31)) and burglary of a residence when a resident is present (§ 667.5, subd. (c)(21)) are crimes commonly committed by many types of offenders, juvenile and adult, gang members or not. I disagree with the majority that, simply because juveniles and gang members sometimes or often commit these offenses, their addition to the serious and violent felony lists was germane to Proposition 21’s subject. (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 577.) Such a broad view of the initiative’s subject would render virtually any criminal law provision germane.
On the other hand, I do not believe that the inclusion of these very few doubtfully germane provisions in a broad and complex measure addressing juvenile and gang violence should be deemed a separate “subject” for purposes of article II, section 8, subdivision (d) of the California Constitution. The single-subject rule “should not be interpreted in an unduly narrow or restrictive fashion that would preclude the use of the initiative process to accomplish comprehensive, broad-based reform in a particular area of public concern.” (Senate of the State of Cal. v. Jones (1999) 21 Cal.4th 1142, 1157 [90 Cal.Rptr.2d 810, 988 P.2d 1089].) As shown above, the vast majority of offenses qualifying as strikes because of Proposition 21 either were closely related to the measure’s gang and juvenile violence subject or qualify as *584strikes only as a collateral consequence of the initiative’s change in the Three Strikes law’s lock-in date. The addition of burglary with a resident present and assault with a deadly weapon was, moreover, not completely unrelated to Proposition 21 ’s subject, since these offenses, even if equally or more likely to be committed by an adult who is not a gang member, are also commonly committed by juveniles and gang members. Requiring, in addition, that each and every provision of an initiative be clearly and particularly related to the initiative’s purposes would demand of initiative proposers a degree of precision unrealistic in the drafting of measures effectively reforming California’s complicated body of statutory law. (Kennedy Wholesale, Inc. v. State Bd. of Equalization, supra, 53 Cal.3d at p. 254.)
For this reason, I agree with the majority that Proposition 21 does not violate our Constitution’s single-subject limitation on initiative measures.

All further statutory references are to this code.