Saying that “arbitrary factors, rather than legitimate ones” frequently dictate if a death row inmate will actually be executed, a federal judge has shut down capital punishment in California. U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney said that because of “an inordinate and unpredictable period of delay preceding their actual execution” due to “the dysfunctional administration of California’s death penalty system,” many prisoners are subjected to “complete uncertainty” that is a violation of the Constitution’s prohibiting of cruel and unusual punishment. Currently, 3,100 inmates sit on death row in California, though the state has executed just 13 people in the last four decades …
