A federal judge struck down California’s death penalty Wednesday on the grounds that it violates the Constitution because sentences are not carried out in a reasonably, timely, or organized manner. “Arbitrary factors, rather than legitimate ones…determine whether an individual will actually be executed,” Judge Cormac Carney wrote.
Hundreds of people have been sentenced to die but only 13 have been put to death since 1976, when the Supreme Court overturned a national moratorium on the practice.
California has 3,100 prisoners on death row. The ruling overturns the death sentence for Ernest Jones, who was sentenced to die more than 20 years ago. Read more at Los Angeles Times.
{Andy Heller-Matzav.com Newscenter}
