JUSTICES EXPAND ON POT DECISION

Nov. 24 - A divided Colorado Supreme Court Monday explained why it refused
to allow a marijuana initiative on the November ballot, but the two
dissenting justices fear the decision could erode the initiative process.

In a 5-2 ruling, Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey accused Martin H. Chilcutt,
one of the measure's backers, of ignoring the interests of voters by seeking
to place on the ballot a measure which did not have the requisite number of
petition signatures to be there.

But the two dissenting justices, Rebecca Kourlis and Alex Martinez, blasted
the majority.

They said the measure should have been on the ballot and wasn't there
because Secretary of State Vikki Buckley failed to meet her statutory
obligations.

They said Buckley had 30 days to properly verify the sufficiency of 88,815
signatures submitted to her by the initiative supporters but failed to do so
because of errors she made in her initial count.

Now, said the two dissenters, the Supreme Court has given Buckley the right
to go outside her 30-day limit if necessary and conduct additional recounts.
That, they said, is going to cause delay and confusion in the initiative
process.

"In my view, the majority has adopted a construction which restricts the
right of initiative," said Martinez. "Because the secretary is no longer
required to conclude the analysis within 30 days of the petition's filing,
the secretary is granted an indefinite period in which to examine the
petition. Thus, by filing an erroneous statement as to the sufficiency of
the petition's signatures, the secretary gains an extra-statutory and
open-ended extension of time."

Buckley originally ruled - within the mandatory 30 days - that initiative
supporters had failed to gather enough valid signatures for the measure to
be on the ballot and refused to certify it.

Using a random sampling technique, Buckley ruled that only 47,960 of the
88,815 signatures were valid and did not meet the 54,242 signatures needed.

But Coloradans for Medical Rights claimed that a thorough review of the
secretary of state's random sampling technique showed it was severely
flawed.

After their challenge, Denver District Judge Herbert Stern ordered the
initiative on the ballot after Buckley admitted to making mistakes in the
first review.

Buckley had wanted Stern to allow her to recount the number of petition
signatures.

Stern, however, refused saying that Buckley had 30 days to declare the
petitions sufficient or insufficient and those 30 days had passed.

But the Supreme Court overruled Stern and ordered Buckley to do a
line-by-line analysis of the petition signatures. If and only if there were
enough valid signatures could the matter be placed on the ballot, the
Supreme Court said.

When the recount conducted by Buckley showed that there were insufficient
signatures, the Supreme court blocked the counting of the votes in the
election even though the measure's supporters claimed Buckley had again made
mistakes.

On Monday, Mullarkey and the court majority said they voted to protect the
system's integrity.

"Chilcutt views the right of initiative solely from the perspective of an
initiative's proponent who desires to place a measure on the ballot. He
ignores the interests of the voters who, through the constitution, have
required that an initiative must demonstrate a certain level of support
before it may appear on the ballot," said Mullarkey.

"The purpose for a detailed signature verification procedure is to maintain
integrity in the initiative process and to comply with the constitutional
requirements," she said. "The process should properly safeguard, protect and
preserve...these modern instrumentalities of democratic government."
Chilcutt was unavailable for comment Monday.

Checked-by: Don Beck