PHOENIX β A judge has thrown out a bid to keep voters from deciding whether to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.
In a ruling released this morning, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jo Lynn Gentry said when state lawmakers altered the election code last year they eliminated the ability of individual citizens to sue to keep initiative measures off the ballot. And she said lawmakers failed to restore that right anywhere else.
"Thus, whether wittingly or not, the legislatures eliminated a means by which initiative petitions can be challenged,'' Gentry wrote.
The judge also rejected a legal end-run attempted by Brett Johnson, the attorney for foes of legalization, to claim that she could use more general powers over public officials to keep Secretary of State Michele Reagan from putting the measure to voters.
"Where the legislature has specifically acted to divest the court of jurisdiction, it would be imprudent to ignore the standing issue,'' Gentry wrote.
Today's ruling is unlikely to be the last word, with initiative foes virtually certain to take the case to the Arizona Supreme Court.
Gentry, however, is prepared if the justices overturn her conclusion that the challengers have no legal right to sue. She also ruled that even if they could sue, they still have not proven their case that the initiative is legally flawed.
