On July 16, 2014, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney invalidated California’s death penalty. RBGG Founding Partner Sandy Rosen provided context for the decision in two op-ed pieces that appeared in somehwat different forms in the Huffington Post and the Daily Journal.
Death Penalty Ruling is 50 Years Late, Daily Journal, July 28, 2014
California’s Death Penalty Regime Ruled Unconstitutional: It Should Have Been Buried More Than 50 Years Ago, Huffington Post, July 24, 2014
Sandy concludes the Huffington Post piece with the following:
“Within the next weeks and months, Jerry Brown and Kamala Harris, California’s attorney general, who also is a foe of the death penalty, must decide whether to accept or appeal Judge Carney’s decision. Both refused to appeal Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision invalidating California’s Proposition 8, which had prohibited same-sex marriages (see Hollingsworth v. Perry, 570 U.S. ___ [2013]). One can but hope that they will do the right thing again and stand by their convictions. The time has come to bring this part of Alex Bickel’s constitutional legacy to fruition and end the broken, expensive, delay-plagued death penalty in California and the rest of the United States.”