By Howard Mintz
hmintz@mercurynews.com
Posted: 08/30/2015 01:18:34 PM PDT| Updated: 49 min. ago
California is about to find out if taking three decades or more to execute death row inmates will turn out to be the fatal flaw in the state's long-faltering death penalty system. In a case that may be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal appeals court on Monday will review a Los Angeles federal judge's startling ruling last year declaring California's "dysfunctional" death penalty law unconstitutional because of systemic delays in a state with more than a quarter of the nation's condemned inmates. In that ruling, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney concluded that death sentences in California, where there are now more than 750 condemned killers at San Quentin, have been transformed into "life in prison, with the remote possibility of death."The ruling has been put on hold while the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals weighs Attorney General Kamala Harris' appeal. Despite her own reservations about the death penalty, Harris has urged the appeals court to reverse the decision, saying in court papers the ruling is "fundamentally misguided" because any delays in reviewing the appeals of death row inmates are meant to ensure legal protections to avoid mistakes.
<snip> With at least 40 percent of the state's death row inmates now awaiting execution for two decades or longer, legal experts say the time may be ripe for the Supreme Court to use the California example to decide whether such delays render a state's death penalty law unconstitutional. Condemned inmates in California and elsewhere have tried the argument before, but Carney's ruling broke new ground -- and at least two Supreme Court justices, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, have already urged the court as recently as June to take up the broader question of the death penalty's legality.
<snip> Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, scoffs at the argument California's death penalty is irretrievably broken. "Of course it's fixable," he said. "Virginia fixed their system. They executed the D.C. sniper in less than six years, and that is not unusual there."The 9th Circuit is hearing the case at a critical point. State prison officials plan to unveil a new single-drug execution method this fall, a move that could lead to the resumption of executions in a year or two. And there are at least 17 death row inmates who've exhausted their legal appeals and are eligible for immediate execution dates if the state's death chamber reopens. more at link:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_28729162/california-death-penalty-trial
