The state’s high court announced Thursday that it will hear oral argument in Briggs v. Brown, the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 66, which passed by the slimmest of margins last November. The hearing will be held at 9:30 a.m (PDT), Tuesday, June 6, in the Supreme Court courtroom in Los Angeles. (The oral argument can be livestreamed.)
The lawsuit brought by former California Attorney General John Van de Kamp, who died in March, and former El Dorado County Supervisor Ron Briggs (who also helped usher in an expanded death penalty bill in California in 1978), both supporters of Prop 62, maintained that Prop 66 illegally interferes with the courts’ power to hear original petitions for writ of habeas corpus; violates the “separation of powers” rules; and violates the single-subject rule, which requires that a proposition can address only one subject. (DPF board member Aundre Herron wrote an analysis of Proposition 66 and the changes it is trying to institute, in our March 2017 issue.)
Death Penalty Focus filed an amicus brief to the Briggs lawsuit.
It is expected that the Court will issue its opinion within 90 days after oral argument.
