The Commonwealth Court has issued a permanent injunction in a lawsuit brought by LWVPA  invalidating the 2019 referendum vote on Marsy's Law. 

In a 3-2 decision, the court enjoined the secretary of state from certifying the amendment which is intended to provide victims of crime equal rights with those of the accused.  Judge Ellen Ceisler wrote that the proposed amendment would implement “sweeping and complex changes” to the state constitution and, thus, is in violation of the constitutional requirement that voters must have the opportunity to consider changes to different sections of the constitution as separate questions.

The lawsuit is expected to be appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for a final decision. The amendment would grant crime victims the same state constitutional rights as criminal defendants, but LWVPA and the Pa. ACLU argued that the amendment would violate the rights of the accused in several important aspects. Voters approved the amendment by a vote of 1.7 million for to 620,000 against the question in the 2019 municipal election. 

Judge Ceisler also wrote the opinion granting the League preliminary injunction.  Her initial ruling  marked the first time in the history of the commonwealth that a judge has ever ordered that a ballot question not be counted or certified after the question has been printed on the ballot. 

The new opinion, issued Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021, decided that the amendment is unconsitutional because it is a multi-faceted question that will affect several parts of the Constitution. The court observed that many of the proposed victims' rights are already enshrined in the state Crime Victims Act and other laws. The judges also agreed that the suit raised an election issue because the amendment does not allow voters to vote on each part separately as  the state Constitution requires. 

Read the decision here.