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SAN DIEGO — An appeals court Wednesday struck down a key provision of Proposition 21 which, with strong support from voters last year, allowed prosecutors to charge youths as adults for certain serious crimes. 

In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled the provision violates the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers clause by taking power from judges and giving it to prosecutors, who are part of the government’s executive branch. 

The court found that “the fundamental nature” of the decision to charge a juvenile as an adult amounts to a sentencing decision that can’t be turned over to prosecutors. 

The ruling came in an appeal of a decision to charge eight San Diego teens as adults for an attack on five Mexican agricultural workers last summer. Similar challenges to the law have been filed on behalf of minors around the state. 

“This changes the way the juvenile courts are going to proceed in thousands upon thousands of cases,” said Kerry Steigerwalt, a lawyer for one of the eight San Diego teen-agers. 

“This guts Proposition 21,” he said. 

The San Diego County District Attorney’s office, which charged the youths with robbery and assault in the attack, is expected to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court. 

Proposition 21, approved by nearly two-thirds of voters in March, overhauled the state’s juvenile justice system to crack down on young criminals. It had strong backing from former Gov. Pete Wilson as well as Gov. Gray Davis. 

It required pretrial detention for people younger than 18 who are charged with serious crimes and established a new probation system for youths. 

Justice Alex McDonald, who was appointed to the court in 1995 by Wilson, wrote in the majority opinion that Wednesday’s ruling doesn’t invalidate other provisions of Proposition 21, such as a mandate that youths 14 and older be tried as adults for murder and sexual assaults. 

The troublesome part of the law was a portion giving prosecutors the power to decide whether they would charge youths as adults for other crimes — such as robbery and hate-crimes in the case of the San Diego teens. 

In dissenting from the majority, Justice Gilbert Nares argued that voters have the legal right to delegate such decisions to prosecutors. 

“I believe the people of this state have the constitutional power and the right to take such a measured approach to combat serious and violent juvenile crimes,” wrote Nares, who was appointed to the court in 1988 by Gov. George Deukmejian. 

The law also sought to close a wide gulf between sentencing for adults and minors. 

If the eight San Diego teens — who ranged in age from 14 to 17 at the time of the attack — had been convicted as adults, they would have faced sentences ranging from 12 years to 16 years for robbery and assault with a hate-crime enhancement. 

As juveniles, their maximum penalty would be confinement in California Youth Authorities facilities until age 25. 

Critics have argued that incarcerating juveniles with adults and for longer sentences is cruel and unusual punishment, and say that young people sent to adult prisons generally get no chance at rehabilitation.