Coastal voices: Prop. 5 simply bad law law

Proposition 5, which is on the November ballot, calls itself the "Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act." It seeks to entice your vote by claiming to support drug courts and rehabilitation, and promises to reduce our prison population and thereby lessen California's ongoing budget woes.

It will do neither. It will simply give those deserving a prison sentence a get-out-of-jail-free card if they claim "drugs made me do it."

As with most initiatives, Proposition 5 was written by a special interest group. The initiative is very long and poorly written. In its 36 pages you will find one thing, a very bad law. It applies to many non-drug-related offenses such as arson, burglary, auto theft, child pornography and DUI. It does not limit itself to simple possession drug crimes. In fact, it will allow a defendant to have up to a kilogram of narcotics to take advantage of its no-jail-time provisions. Those who have a kilogram of any drug are not simple addicts — they are sophisticated dealers.

Those of us who work in the criminal justice system have a responsibility to seek and ensure public safety; to seek and ensure the protection of those victimized and to seek and ensure the appropriate punishment of those who victimize others. Proposition 5 eliminates our ability to accomplish these goals. It is well recognized by those of us in law enforcement that drug treatment is an essential component of any strategy to combat drug abuse.

Our county's drug court program accomplishes its success by imposing accountability. There are consequences for failures to attend or for failures to test and for testing dirty. Proposition 5 eliminates this accountability. It takes all discretion away from our local judges to determine what type of program a defendant needs or what type of sentence should be imposed. In fact Proposition 5 prevents using a dirty test against a defendant and limits the maximum time to one year in county jail only after a defendant has completely failed the mandated program; no matter what crime was committed.

So if a defendant steals your car or burns down your house and claims "drugs made me do it," they can never be sentenced to prison. Is this fair to the victim? Is this justice? Does this sound like a good way to reduce our prison population?

Worse yet, Proposition 5 mandates that this state set aside $610 million from our current budget for startup costs. We all witnessed this state's last budget boondoggle and we must ask where is this half-billion dollars going to come from? Further, this funding level must be maintained until repealed by the voters. OK, so we will have another un-funded state mandate that will come out of the general fund of each county. Can Del Norte or any other rural county afford this? The backers of Proposition 5 promise to rehabilitate drug addicts and reduce prison overcrowding while saving taxpayer money. As your sheriff and your district attorney, we must warn you that Proposition 5 threatens to create a fiscal and public safety disaster in our county.

All 58 elected district attorneys in the state vehemently oppose Proposition 5. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Lt. Gov. John Garamendi are vocal opponents. So are Attorney General Jerry Brown and every former California attorney general, the California State Sheriffs Association, the Police Chiefs of California, MADD, former governors Pete Wilson, Gray Davis and George Deukmejian, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and virtually every major newspaper across the state. Even the California Judges Association, which rarely takes a position on state initiatives, has issued a blistering denunciation of its provisions.

Why have so many respected organizations and public officials come out against Proposition 5? The reason is simple. It is a bad law.