Federal judge rules California death penalty is unconstitutional

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San Quentin State Prison, opened in 1852 on the shore of San Francisco Bay, is the state’s oldest prison and home to California’s only death row. (Eric Risberg / Associated Press)

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The lethal injection facility at San Quentin State Prison, newly built in 2010. A federal judge ruled Wednesday that California’s death penalty violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. (Eric Risberg / Associated Press)

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Members of the media get a look inside the new lethal injection chamber at San Quentin State Prison in 2010. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

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A view of the lethal injection chamber at San Quentin State Prison. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

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Death row inmates in the crowded exercise yard of East Block Condemned Row 2 at San Quentin Prison in 2003. (Eric Risberg / Associated Press )

By Maura DolanStaff Writer

July 16, 2014 1:43 PM PT

A federal judge in Orange County ruled Wednesday that California’s death penalty violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney, ruled on a petition by death row inmate Ernest Dewayne Jones, who was sentenced to die nearly two decades ago.

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FOR THE RECORD

July 16, 1:16 p.m.: An earlier version of this post said U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney was a federal judge in Los Angeles. He is a federal judge in Orange County.

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Carney said the state’s death penalty has created long delays and uncertainty for inmates, most of whom will never be executed.

He noted that more than 900 people have been sentenced to death in California since 1978 but only 13 have been executed.

“For the rest, the dysfunctional administration of California’s death penalty system has resulted, and will continue to result, in an inordinate and unpredictable period of delay preceding their actual execution,” Carney wrote.

Carney’s ruling can be appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Carney, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, said the delays have created a “system in which arbitrary factors, rather than legitimate ones like the nature of the crime or the date of the death sentence, determine whether an individual will actually be executed,” Carney said.

In overturning Jones’ death sentence, Carney noted that the inmate faced “complete uncertainty as to when, or even whether” he will be executed.

The “random few” who will be executed “will have languished for so long on Death Row that their execution will serve no retributive or deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary,” Carney said.

“No rational person,” Carney wrote, “can question that the execution of an individual carries with it the solemn obligation of the government to ensure that the punishment is not arbitrarily imposed and that it furthers the interests of society.”

Natasha Minsker, a director of the ACLU of Northern California, said Wednesday’s ruling marked the first time that a federal judge had found the state’s current system unconstitutional. She said it was also “the first time any judge has ruled systemic delay creates an arbitrary system that serves no legitimate purpose and is therefore unconstitutional.”

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge in 1995 sentenced Jones to death for the 1992 rape and killing of Julia Miller, his girlfriend’s mother. Jones killed Miller 10 months after being paroled for a previous rape.

A spokesman for Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris said only that her office was reviewing the decision.

Follow @mauradolan for news about California legal issues.