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California's death penalty ruled unconstitutional

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  • California's death penalty ruled unconstitutional

    Source: http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/16/justice/california-death-penalty/index.html?hpt=hp_t4


    In ruling California's death penalty unconstitutional, a federal judge said Wednesday the system is so broken it unfairly leaves inmates with uncertain fates -- often for decades.

    In his decision, Santa Ana-based Judge Cormac J. Carney vacated the 1995 death sentence of Ernest D. Jones, who petitioned the court to determine whether his death sentence was valid.

    Carney wrote: "Allowing this system to continue to threaten Mr. Jones with the slight possibility of death, almost a generation after he was first sentenced, violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. "

    © Copyright Original Source



    Prohibit the death penalty because it isn't implemented enough??
    That's what
    - She

    Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
    - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

    I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
    - Stephen R. Donaldson

  • #2
    Given the nasty side effects on the people charged with the duty of enacting an execution order .... I'm all for any excuse being used to abandon the practice.
    1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
    .
    ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
    Scripture before Tradition:
    but that won't prevent others from
    taking it upon themselves to deprive you
    of the right to call yourself Christian.

    ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
      Source: http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/16/justice/california-death-penalty/index.html?hpt=hp_t4


      In ruling California's death penalty unconstitutional, a federal judge said Wednesday the system is so broken it unfairly leaves inmates with uncertain fates -- often for decades.

      In his decision, Santa Ana-based Judge Cormac J. Carney vacated the 1995 death sentence of Ernest D. Jones, who petitioned the court to determine whether his death sentence was valid.

      Carney wrote: "Allowing this system to continue to threaten Mr. Jones with the slight possibility of death, almost a generation after he was first sentenced, violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. "

      © Copyright Original Source



      Prohibit the death penalty because it isn't implemented enough??
      Isn't that what "unusual" means?
      Don't call it a comeback. It's a riposte.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Spartacus View Post
        Isn't that what "unusual" means?
        No. "Unusual" was included in the Bill of Rights as a redacted form of England's 1689 English Bill of Rights, and specifically the excessive bail clause. The American colonial understanding was that the ban applied to torturous punishments such as pillorying, disemboweling, decapitation, and drawing and quartering. Inasmuch as such punishments were virtually absent in colonial America, Justice Joseph Story in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States believed that "[t]he provision would seem wholly unnecessary in a free government, since it is scarcely possible, that any department of such government should authorize, or justify such atrocious conduct." In 1976, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger declared that the Framers meant to ban only punishments not prescribed by law as well as tortuous punishments, but subsequent decisions have strayed from the historic meaning of the term in what Chief Justice Warren termed "evolving standards of decency". (http://www.heritage.org/constitution...ual-punishment)
        That's what
        - She

        Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
        - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

        I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
        - Stephen R. Donaldson

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
          No. "Unusual" was included in the Bill of Rights as a redacted form of England's 1689 English Bill of Rights, and specifically the excessive bail clause. The American colonial understanding was that the ban applied to torturous punishments such as pillorying, disemboweling, decapitation, and drawing and quartering. Inasmuch as such punishments were virtually absent in colonial America, Justice Joseph Story in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States believed that "[t]he provision would seem wholly unnecessary in a free government, since it is scarcely possible, that any department of such government should authorize, or justify such atrocious conduct." In 1976, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger declared that the Framers meant to ban only punishments not prescribed by law as well as tortuous punishments, but subsequent decisions have strayed from the historic meaning of the term in what Chief Justice Warren termed "evolving standards of decency". (http://www.heritage.org/constitution...ual-punishment)
          Fair enough.
          Don't call it a comeback. It's a riposte.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
            Source: http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/16/justice/california-death-penalty/index.html?hpt=hp_t4


            In ruling California's death penalty unconstitutional, a federal judge said Wednesday the system is so broken it unfairly leaves inmates with uncertain fates -- often for decades.

            In his decision, Santa Ana-based Judge Cormac J. Carney vacated the 1995 death sentence of Ernest D. Jones, who petitioned the court to determine whether his death sentence was valid.

            Carney wrote: "Allowing this system to continue to threaten Mr. Jones with the slight possibility of death, almost a generation after he was first sentenced, violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. "

            © Copyright Original Source



            Prohibit the death penalty because it isn't implemented enough??
            Actually, he's right. If the state is inconsistent it does make the implementation arbitrary and therefore C&U.

            I don't think his remedy is correct even though I actually oppose the DP. I can agree to the vacating but the constitutionality isn't really the issue. There were other options the judge should have taken.

            "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

            "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

            My Personal Blog

            My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

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            Comment


            • #7
              I think it's fairly inevitable that some years down the road, SCOTUS will rule it unconstitutional for the entire US, but not with the current court makeup. This course was set into action when the Court considered other nations' practices when prohibiting the execution of people who were 17 at the time of their crimes a few years ago. States that infrequently execute are starting to abandon the death penalty one by one as well. (There's only a few states that do consistently perform executions.)
              "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

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