California court rules ballot initiative means parolees can't be jailed again for using drugs
A California appeals court has ruled that parolees caught using drugs must get treatment instead of more prison, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The case, decided Tuesday by California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana, pits 2000’s Proposition 36 against a 2011 state law passed through the Legislature. Proposition 36 mandates drug diversion courts for nonviolent drug possession offenses.
But in 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature passed “realignment” laws, which shifted responsibility for certain prisoners to county governments rather than the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. This included a provision requiring up to six months in jail when county-supervised ex-offenders violate terms of their release—including with drug use.
The appeals court ruled 3-0 that the realignment law did not meet a requirement that two-thirds of the state Legislature approve any amendments to Proposition 36.
“The Legislature cannot evade Proposition 36’s amendment requirements simply by passing legislation that purports to pare down the proposition’s coverage,” Justice Raymond Ikola wrote.
The ruling won’t help the defendant in the case, Evan Armogeda, who has finished his jail time. But attorney Wayne Tobin says it could affect hundreds of others who were released after 2011 and are under county rather than state supervision.
Realignment was an attempt to lower California’s prison population, an ongoing problem for Gov. Jerry Brown. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Plata that the state’s prison population must be limited to protect the Eighth Amendment rights of prisoners to adequate medical care.
