Judge’s ruling on Calif. death penalty stuns experts
By Maura Dolan and Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times
A federal judge’s ruling that California’s death penalty is unconstitutional was described by legal experts Wednesday as stunning and unprecedented.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney found that decades-long delays and uncertainty about whether condemned inmates will ever be executed violate the constitution’s ban on cruel or unusual punishment.
Carney issued his ruling in a decision that overturned the death sentence of Ernest Dewayne Jones, a Los Angeles man sentenced to die for the 1992 rape and murder of Julia Miller, his girlfriend’s mother.
In overturning Jones’ death sentence, Carney noted that the inmate faced “complete uncertainty as to when, or even whether” he would be executed.
He pointed out that more than 900 people have been sentenced to death in California since 1978 but only 13 have been executed.
He didn’t rule the death penalty was unconstitutional but rather the way it isn’t used in California.
Use it or lose it.
In my youth, including my college student days, I was opposed to the death penalty, mostly because I didn’t think that government should be in the business of killing people.
Later, as a cop, I dealt with many folks for whom the death penalty would have been the easy way out. There are truly hateful people out there, and removing them permanently from society can only be a good thing.
But nowadays, where in our country we’re working toward an extreme form of capitalism (Who really is John Galt? Does he have a Saturday morning cartoon show?) it’s very difficult to separate the evil from the repressed. I don’t spend much time worrying about the criminals who put themselves in jail, but I’m becoming less and less enthusiastic about killing them.
This is a great ruling. Stop the decades of never ending appeals and get the execution done. These appeals and the cost of holding these convicted people in prisons is a huge drain on California’s budget/ peoples tax dollars, and is making some people and companies rich.
Convict and execute, done deal !
I hope this results in life sentences without parole. My life has been touched by hideous violent crime, and I never wanted the perpetrator executed because that would be too good for him. I want him to rot in prison, but I also want him to earn his keep, and if someone should come along and do to him what he’s done to others, all the better. I want him to suffer, big time.
And if the guy in the next cell turns out to be innocent and gets to go home to his family and try to rebuild some kind of life for himself, that’s good, too. No use being exonerated after the government has executed you.
Steven-
There are scores of incidents where DNA or other investigations have proven convicted killers in prison innocent.
How does this fit in your “convict and execute, done deal” thoughts? Do you think about anything except money?
Copper-
My own feelings about the death penalty run semi parallel to yours, for different but similar circumstances.
Clearly there are people who should be removed from society permanently, with no possibility for parole or early good behavior release. I believe we should lock ’em up (and not in a soft prison), and keep them there until they die a natural death.
We do no good killing for retribution. This sends a very conflicting signal about our culture and morals, and may have some tangible affect on the violence that permeates our every day lives, it seems, in an escalating cycle.
The death penalty is a relic. There have been hundreds of inmates exonerated in the past 20 years. Statistically, there is 4% chance of an innocent person being on death row. There are at least 6 cases of innocent people being put to death in America. Then there are the social and economic inequality to deal with.
Rock, just wondering what your thoughts are on what we should do with these people, I guess keeping them locked up for the rest of their lives wpuld be just fine. Though the cost of such is really hurting people who could really use the help getting what they need.
When death penalty is done The person who puts in a needle is just as much a a murder himself 2 wrongs dont make it right ,
reloman, there is no economic argument in favor of the death penalty. The cost of a death penalty trial plus appeals far exceeds the cost of a trial with LWOP. The NPV calculations sway heavily in favor of LWOP.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2011/09/22/death-and-taxes-the-real-cost-of-the-death-penalty/
We cant go without the appeals, or we run the risk of executing an innocent. So in the end we have to ask ourselves how much we want to pay for revenge. Revenge is very expensive.
A buddy of mine was a guard, he assures me the prisoners create a hellish enough environment for themselves. Retribution is happening.
I agree with you, Moral Hazard. The death penalty is a bad idea on so many levels. A criminal defense attorney once explained to me how the system worked, as far as expense to the taxpayer. So even if you don’t disagree with the death penalty on a moral level (and I do) you SHOULD disagree on an economic level.