Yes 6,626,159 Valid votes 12,959,890 | No 6,333,731 | |
 | ||
6,626,159 7001511300000000000♠51.13% 6,333,731 7001488700000000000♠48.87% 12,959,890 7001887000000000000♠88.70% | ||
Proposition 66 was a California ballot proposition on the November 8, 2016, ballot to change procedures governing California state court challenges to capital punishment in California, designate superior court for initial petitions, limit successive petitions, require appointed attorneys who take noncapital appeals to accept death penalty appeals, and exempt prison officials from existing regulation process for developing execution methods. Proposition 66 was approved by voters in the November general election, with 50.9% voting to speed up executions. Proposition 62 was rejected by voters in the same election, with only 46.1% voting to end executions.
The intention of Proposition 66 is to speed up the process of capital trials and executions.
If voters had passed both Prop 66 and its competing measure, Prop 62, which would abolish the death penalty, then the measure with the most votes would have taken effect.
The measure was opposed by the editorial boards of the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Sacramento Bee.
Legal challenge
After Prop 66 passed, former California Attorney General John Van de Kamp, along with Ron Briggs (whose father John Briggs was the sponsor of Prop 7 in 1978, which expanded capital punishment in California), challenged the measure in court. On December 20, 2016, the California Supreme Court stopped Prop 66 from going into effect pending resolution of the legal challenge.