The California Supreme Court appeared divided Tuesday over the constitutionality of a ballot measure passed in November to speed up executions. A competing measure to replace the death penalty with life without parole lost. New legal deadlines for deciding capital cases would leave the California Supreme Court with little time to decide civil disputes. Proponents of the measure blame defense lawyers for requesting too many time extensions to file written arguments and the California Supreme Court for granting them. Briggs previously supported the death penalty but now argues the system is broken and must be scrapped.

Source: Los Angeles Times June 06, 2017 12:02 UTC