Federal appeals court upholds California's death penalty reviews
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today reversed a federal judge’s ruling that declared California’s capital punishment system unconstitutional on grounds that appeals took too long.
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney ruled the system unconstitutional on July 16, 2014, saying it is arbitrary and plagued with delay.
In a unanimous decision issued Thursday morning, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the long delays prisoners endure on death row awaiting execution do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
Last year, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney declared the state’s capital punishment system unconconstitutional because of decades-long delays.
“Petitioner does not assert that he fits into one of the traditionally recognized classes” such as those with insanity or intellectual disability," the decision said.
The idea that death row inmates' sentences have been transformed from one of death to one of “grave uncertainty and torture” has “no support” in legal precedent, “nor is it supported by logic,” according to the opinion.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...112-story.html
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