LWVPA Wins on Marsy's Law Ballot Measure

LWVPA Wins on Marsy's Law Ballot Measure

Pennsylvania Constitution

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court voted 6-1 to invalidate Marsy's Law, the crime victims' rights constitutional amendment opposed in a lawsuit brought by LWVPA.

The aim of the amendment was to provide as many rights to victims as to their alleged attackers, and it would have spelled out 15 rights for victims.  Many of the proposed rights would have clashed with already existing consitutional rights afforded those who have been accused but not convicted of a crime, and theywould have created a bureaucratic nightmare for the courts and law enforcement, according to legal analysts.   

The court majority agreed with the League that the state Constitution specifies that amendments must be on one subject and that the proposed Marsy's Law amendment did not allow voters to decide on each provision. 

The majority said it "can easily envision a voter supporting one or more of these rights without approving all of threm." 

"The Legislature attempted to do too much at once, which is prohibited to keep voters from being overwhelmed," said Reggie Shuford, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, which brought the suit on behalf of LWVPA and individual voters.

Justice Debra Todd, writing for the court majority, said the amendment was "actually a collection of amendments that were not sufficiently interrelated in purpose and function."

Voters approved the amendment by a vote of 1.7 million for to 620,000 against the question in the 2019 municipal election. 

Read the majority decision here
Read the dissenting opinion here