Yes, you're right, the majority of voters decides the outcome in a referendum (except in the case of the electoral college, of course), but doesn't decide the consitutionality of legislation. You don't elect your justices, and they are not (technically) beholden to any party or ideology. That's why federal judges can interfere in states' rights issues, and that's why illegal aliens still get to go to school and marijuana is still illegal. Because if it were up to the People to decide, like it or not, Prop 187 would be placed into law, and so would Prop 215.

My original point is that one of the great things about the Constitution is that it recognizes above all others the rights of the individual, as opposed to the needs of the majority. I realize that transgressions and travesties of justice have occurred and continue to occur that put a blight on our Justice system, but aside from that, the framework for equality is there, and the foundation of that framework is a reverence for the constitutionally recognized rights of the individual. It is to our benefit that we live in a republic and not a true democracy, for all our better intentions and jingoistic platitudes, we are inherently paranoid, angry, unjust, racist, bigoted, and murderous. Nobody seems to like it when the Constitution protects the Bad Guy of the Week. That's why it's there.