Governor Blasts Court on Sentencing Ruling : Bird Says Her Critics Are Trying to Impose a Right-Wing Litmus Test on the Judiciary

Gov. George Deukmejian lashed out Tuesday at a state Supreme Court decision that overturned a key provision of the Victims’ Bill of Rights initiative and declared that justices of the high court should not be insulated from political attack.

Meanwhile, Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, in an interview published Tuesday, publicly decried the campaign to deny her a new 12-year court term, charging that her critics were attempting to impose a right-wing “litmus test” on the judiciary.

The Republican governor, a persistent critic of the court who favors Bird’s ouster at next year’s election, contended on a popular Los Angeles radio talk show that “it is not up to the courts” to reduce the sentences of criminals once the public has determined what the punishment should be.

The Supreme Court ruling Monday overturned a section of Proposition 8, approved by voters in 1982, which required judges to add five years to the terms of offenders for each conviction for certain serious crimes.

Justices Opposed

The decision was signed by Bird and Justices Allen Broussard and Cruz Reynoso. Joseph Grodin wrote a concurring opinion. Bird, Reynoso and Grodin, who are among six justices to go before voters next year, have been targeted for defeat by conservatives.

The governor, speaking from his office in Sacramento, made his comments on a Los Angeles radio call-in program hosted by Michael Jackson on station KABC.

Asked by a caller whether voters should cast their ballots on the basis of the popularity of the court’s decisions or the justices’ legal competence, Deukmejian said the jurists should face the same tests as other officeholders.

“I believe that the judiciary is and should be independent from the Legislature and independent from the executive branch of government,” Deukmejian said. “But I don’t believe that the judiciary should be independent from the people. They are public servants just as the governor is, just as legislators are.”

Bird, appointed to the court by Deukmejian’s Democratic predecessor, former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., was interviewed by the Times Tribune of Palo Alto.

“For eight years the right wing has been attacking me, and consistently so, and I understand why,” she told the newspaper. “They would like a chief justice who shares their views, who would pass all their litmus tests, and they would like a majority of the court sitting here to be mirror images of themselves.”

Her critics, she said, desire judges who “would wet their finger and test the direction of the wind before making decisions. I don’t see my role as getting up in the morning and reading the polls and trying to decide what I’ve got to do to turn it around.

‘Follow the Law’

“My role isn’t to be popular. My role is to be just and follow the law, and sometimes that’s going to make me unpopular. And I understand and appreciate that.”

Bird said that in her campaign she will try to overcome “eight years of misinformation,” adding: “I have great confidence in the people.

“I think if we are able to get across to them what the facts are, that they will vote in a fair manner. And I think if they vote fairly, all of us (Supreme Court justices on the ballot) will be reconfirmed.”

Deukmejian, although opposed to Bird, has not taken a public stand on whether other state Supreme Court justices should also be rejected.

Last Saturday, during a speech in Sacramento, Broussard, a liberal and the only one of seven justices not up for confirmation next year, criticized Deukmejian and said that the Supreme Court should not hand down decisions based on political popularity.

In an apparent reference to that criticism, Deukmejian told a caller to the radio program, “I’ve heard supporters of Chief Justice Bird indicate that by having an election, that you are injecting politics into the court system--that you are encroaching on the independence of the judiciary.

“The fact is, members of the Supreme Court are insulated from the kinds of political pressures that are experienced by legislators or by the governor, who have to run for election every two or four years. Supreme Court justices get elected for 12-year terms so they have a very high degree of insulation.”

One of the major arguments used by Bird’s opponents is that the court under her direction has voted to reverse all 38 death penalty sentences that have come before it on appeal. Bird told the interviewer that she could vote to uphold a death sentence if it met proper constitutional tests. “If I couldn’t follow the law, I wouldn’t sit here,” she said.

Deukmejian, in objecting to the justices’ overturning of the Victims’ Bill of Rights provision, said the court’s only role is to “impose the penalty that’s been prescribed by law.”

“If the people enact a law like they did with Proposition 8,” he said, “they, in effect, have the opportunity to set the penalties.”

In a speech Tuesday night at a fund-raising dinner for the governor in Sacramento, Deukmejian called on the Supreme Court “to implement capital

‘Judges Are ... Concerned’

Deukmejian said he has appointed 275 judges at all levels of the California courts since taking office in 1983. “I can assure you that these judges that we have appointed are as concerned about the rights of victims of crime just as they must be concerned about protecting the rights of the accused,” he said.

The dinner raised an estimated $150,000 for Deukmejian’s expected reelection campaign next year.

Before the dinner, Deukmejian had pounded on the law-and-order theme again, telling a somber audience at the dedication of a memorial for slain correctional officers that he is working to rid the state of violent felons.

The governor, during the ceremony at a correctional training facility in the Sacramento County community of Galt, said he hopes that some day Californians “can start taking the locks and the bars and the chains off of their homes, rather than having to put more of them on.”

Deukmejian called the 29 state prison guards who have lost their lives since 1900 “American heroes.”