California’s death penalty unconstitutional, rules federal judge

The decision by US District Court Judge Cormac Carney represents a legal victory for those who want to abolish the death penalty in America’s most populous state and follows a similar ruling that has suspended executions in the state for years.

Judge Carney, in a case brought by a death row inmate against the warden of San Quentin state prison, called the death penalty an empty promise that violates the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. “Inordinate and unpredictable delay has resulted in a death penalty system in which very few of the hundreds of individuals sentenced to death have been, or even will be, executed by the state,” he wrote.

Since the current death penalty system was adopted by California voters 35 years ago, more than 900 people have been sentenced to death, but only 13 had been executed, the judge wrote.

He noted that appeals can last decades and as a result most condemned inmates are likely to die of natural causes before their executions are carried out.

Judge Carney said “arbitrary factors, rather than legitimate ones like the nature of the crime or the date of the death sentence, determine whether an individual will actually be executed”.

Gil Garcetti, a former Los Angeles County district attorney who has become an anti-death penalty activist, called the ruling “truly historic”.

Judge Carney’s ruling came in a legal petition brought by Ernest Jones, sentenced to die in 1994 after being convicted of murdering and raping his girlfriend’s mother.

The ruling could be appealed by the governor or state attorney general, who both oppose the death penalty. For now, Jones will probably remain on death row.