California Judge Rules Death Penalty Unconstitutional

FILE - This November 2005 file photo shows the death chamber at the Southern Ohio Corrections Facility in Lucasville, Ohio. The sole U.S. manufacturer of a key lethal injection drug said Friday, Jan. 21, 2011 that it... FILE - This November 2005 file photo shows the death chamber at the Southern Ohio Corrections Facility in Lucasville, Ohio. The sole U.S. manufacturer of a key lethal injection drug said Friday, Jan. 21, 2011 that it is ending production because of death-penalty opposition overseas _ a move that could delay executions across the United States. The current shortage of the drug in the U.S. has delayed or disrupted executions in Arizona, California, Kentucky, Ohio and Oklahoma. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File) MORE LESS

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled California’s death penalty unconstitutional.

The ruling Wednesday by U.S. District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney follows a similar ruling in Northern California that has kept the death penalty on hold in California for years.

Ruling in the case of a prisoner who was condemned in 1994, Carney wrote that inordinate and unpredictable delays have resulted in a death penalty system in which arbitrary factors determine whether an individual will actually be executed.

Carney vacated the death sentence of Ernest Dewayne Jones.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  1. The State really should not execute its citizens.

  2. Avatar for drail drail says:

    Tell that to the victims 6 ft. underground. And these’s criminals are sitting in jail still alive and breathing.

  3. One killing isn’t right, so therefore two are?

    The Bible reads “Thou Shall Not Kill”. I don’t see any ambiguity there.

    Of course if you don’t believe in and support the words in the Bible, you should be stoned to death.

  4. Avatar for drail drail says:

    A eye for eye.

  5. If we lived in a perfect world, then justice would be perfect; but it’s not.

    The National Academy of Sciences says that:

    • 138 death row inmates were exonerated between 1973 and 2004
    • 200 more are innocent
    • 2,675 more were taken off death row after doubts about their convictions were raised

    “[T]he law holds it better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer.” – William Blackstone

    “It is more important that innocence should be protected, than it is that guilt be punished.” – John Adams

    “It is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.” – Benjamin Franklin

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