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California’s Death Penalty Unconstitutional, Says Federal Judge
A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that California’s death penalty violates the U.S. Constitution. District Court Judge Cormac Carney overturned the death sentence imposed on Ernest Dewayne Jones for the 1992 rape and murder of his girlfriend’s mother, Julia Miller. Noting that out of more than 900 inmates sentenced to death in California since 1978, only 13 have been executed, Carney ruled that the delays and uncertainty attendant to California’s death penalty system amount to a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Note that the ruling rests exclusively on procedural grounds; there is absolutely no doubt as to Jones’s guilt. And note also that the Los Angeles Times, in reporting on the ruling, described Jones’s crimes in the last paragraph of the story and only in the most benign of terms.
Whatever your opinion on the death penalty, you should acquaint yourself with the facts of Jones’s case, which are contained in all their gruesome details in the 2003 California Supreme Court decision that upheld his death sentence. A warning: be prepared to be sickened when you read about the facts of the case. The California Supreme Court ruling also serves as a primer on the issues in death penalty cases, including jury selection, effectiveness of counsel, and DNA evidence.
If you oppose the death penalty, ponder the terror experienced by Julia Miller in the last moments of her life — then explain why Jones deserves to be kept alive.
Published in General
The judge should be impeached.
Disclaimer: I’m against the death penalty. But I have no doubt that it’s constitutional.
I’ll dispute the rhetoric of the final sentence. The issue in the death penalty isn’t whether someone deserves to live … I know a lot of people who don’t deserve to live … the dispute is whether the state has a right to kill them. Those are two different questions. If the moral worth of the prisoner is the criterion, we’re all in serious trouble. The appeal to the victim’s terror is an appeal to emotion, not reason.
However, the judge’s decision is that “uncertainty” is cruel and unusual. That’s just silly. That logically reduces to saying that we can’t have the death penalty because it isn’t used often enough.
I agree with you Jack Dunphy, but I am not going to read the reference. I waited some 22 years for the murderer of my daughter’s life long best friend to be executed. It never happened. Both CA and NV had sentenced Gerald Gallego to death. With all the long legalities most of them on death row know it isn’t going to happen, at least not in NV or CA.
There’s a quote I love from the fantasy book “Wise Man’s Fear”: “Some people need killing.” When there is no question or doubt that a human has done monstrous, evil things like rape, murder or torture, there right to life is forfeit. They need to be ended.
And as KC said, the idea that the death penalty is unconstitutional is preposterous, and a deliberate ignoring of the original intent of the constitution’s authors (of course, for many liberals that’s a non-issue, but it sure bugs the heck out of me).
I am so sorry for the long years of pain you and your daughter suffered waiting for the right thing to happen.
We live in a strange society. Unborn children, over 50 million of them have been put to death because they are inconvenient. Euthanasia is becoming widely accepted in the US and in Europe. Euthanizing children has become accepted in the Netherlands and in Belgium. We apparently have no problem sending someone home with a bag filled with enough opiates to put down a herd of elephants.
We seem to have a problem putting someone to death that murders another human being in the cruelest and most savage manner imaginable. I always assumed that when one agrees not to seek justice outside the laws of the state and avenge themselves then the state will act on behalf of the victim and their families. Without benefit of a trial the innocent may be put to death, with the benefit of a trial the guilty may not be put to death. It’s all rather confusing.
The SOB died from colon cancer, probably doped up to the gills so the poor dear didn’t feel any pain. Strange how these things work out. The grandparents of the girls lived next door to each other, so the girls were friends since they were toddlers. Karen’s mom had come to pick up my daughter to go shopping, but she had another girl with them that my daughter didn’t care for, so my daughter passed on the shopping trip. Of course Karen and her friend never returned. There is a lot to the story that never made it to the newspapers, and even wikipedia has lies and misinformation. On the morning of her 18th birthday, my daughter received a phone call that Karen’s body had been found in the desert. My daughter and I loved Karen as a member of our family, I consider her a G-d-daughter, I’m not sure we will ever get over it. We still miss her and we still cry occasionally.
I am so sorry. The story itself is both terrifying and heartbreaking. I can understand, but never truly imagine your pain. But my thoughts with prayers are with you.
Thank you Barbara, for your thoughtfulness.
I’m a really torn on this. I fully support the death penalty but the judge has a point that the death penalty system in California is cruel and unusual (particularly to the victims). However, I’m not sure the Constitution’s guarantee applies to the though. Would like to hear the Law Talk gents discuss this. I could also see the system as violating the 6th amendment’s guarantee to a speedy trial. Having said all that I also know that the reason the system is such because of a broken appeals process. So, not sure the judge made the correct verdict. The process needs to be much more swift for all concerned.
This is so true, but Doug, there are still millions and millions of us who don’t agree with society about killing the inocent, unfortunately, nobody really wants to talk about it. Today, someone took a FB share down about Gov. Moonbeam relieving the burden of being husband and wife from all people in CA, because, there are other members of her circle who feel strongly about it.
Sorry about the misspelling but I get a gateway time out when I try to edit my post.
I kind of agree with the judge. California’s failure to operate the mechanics of the death penalty is cruel.
If the prolonged uncertainty is the issue, then it is the appeals process that is unconstitutional.
It seems slightly odd to me to suggest that we have a human right to certainty regarding the time and manner of our deaths. I don’t follow medical news closely enough, but are developments in place that are likely to allow me or my children or grandchildren to relax in the knowledge that they have 5 years, two months, three days and five minutes before the decision to go off-piste turns out to have been a poor one, over-estimating our skiing skills?