The state Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a voter initiative that aims to speed up the death penalty, although it relaxed strict deadlines in the law calling those targets “directive rather than mandatory.”

The court’s decision turned on whether voters intended for Proposition 66 to force the state to resolve its role in death penalty appeals within five years, as supporters pledged when they described the initiative in voter guides and in their campaign. That timeline would greatly condense a process that often takes more than 20 years.

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“By reimagining the initiative as nothing more than an earnest exhortation calling on courts to consider dialing up the speed of death penalty adjudication, the majority upholds something quite different from the initiative considered and enacted by the electorate, leaving in its wake uncertainty about how we interpret initiatives and whether the time limits included in Proposition 66 have any legal effect,” Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar wrote in an opinion that was also signed by Justice Raymond Ikola.