The Process Is A Violation Of Humanity

The process, not just the execution methods, are a violation to humanity; both to the person we  are sentencing to Death, and to ourselves.
As citizens approving of capital punishment we diminish human life's value and we diminish our own personal humanity by participating in a very cruel process and the unnecessary taking of a life. We become the predator.
 
That may sound too harsh to some, but what do you call it when a captured person who has been rendered defenseless is ceremoniously killed?
What is your definition of confined captivity for years on end facing the promise to be executed?

It doesn't even sound like something we would participate in.
We were all guilty of just such acts when Joseph Wood, Clayton Lockett, Dennis McGuire were killed over the last several months. We are guilty either by agreeing with and upholding the present Death Penalty system, or we are guilty if we stand by in silence as this continues.
There are about 3,200 more human beings living on U.S.A. death rows.
What will you do about it today?  

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/opinion/A-Lifetime-on-Californias-Death-Row.html?_r=0

 "The state’s death-penalty system is “so plagued by inordinate and unpredictable delay,” wrote United States District Judge Cormac Carney, that it violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment."

"States including Florida, Alabama and North Carolina have responded to similar delays by moving to streamline death-row appeals. But speed is not the point if it comes at the expense of accuracy. As Judge Carney said, “death is a punishment different in kind from any other,” and so requires more careful scrutiny than any other.

"That extra scrutiny is “vitally important,” the judge pointed out: Half of California’s death sentences that were reviewed by a federal court were eventually vacated."


The cost is too high and a waste of our dollars:

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/16/california-death-penalty_n_5592448.html

"Capital punishment was ruled unconstitutional by the state's Supreme Court in 1976, but was reinstated by the state legislature the following year. Since then, 13 inmates have been executed in California, most recently Clarence Ray Allen in 2006. An analysis by the Los Angeles Times found that the state spent $308 million on each execution."


Recent California Ruling Document:

http://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Jones%20v.%20Chappell.pdf

Case No.: CV 09-02158-CJC 
ORDER DECLARING 
CALIFORNIA’S DEATH PENALTY 
SYSTEM UNCONSTITUTIONAL 
AND VACATING PETITIONER’S 
DEATH SENTENCE 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE:    CORMAC J. CARNEY       July 16,2014

On April 7, 1995, Petitioner Ernest Dewayne Jones was condemned to death by the 

State of California. Nearly two decades later, Mr. Jones remains on California’s Death 

Row, awaiting his execution, but with complete uncertainty as to when, or even whether, 

it will ever come. Mr. Jones is not alone. Since 1978, when the current death penalty 

system was adopted by California voters, over 900 people have been sentenced to death 

for their crimes.

p. 1

Of course, the Court’s conclusion should not be understood to suggest that the

post-conviction review process should be curtailed in favor of speed over accuracy.

Indeed, it bears noting that in more than half of all cases in which the federal courts have

reviewed a California inmate’s death sentence on habeas review, the inmate has been

granted relief from the death sentence. See Appendix A. The post-conviction review

process is, therefore, vitally important. It serves both the inmate’s interest in not being

improperly executed, as well as the State’s interest in ensuring that it does not improperly

execute any individual. Nevertheless, the Court holds that where the State permits the

post-conviction review process to become so inordinately and unnecessarily delayed that

only an arbitrarily selected few of those sentenced to death are executed, the State’s

process violates the Eight Amendment. Fundamental principles of due process and just

punishment demand that any punishment, let alone the ultimate one of execution, be

timely and rationally carried out.
p. 26

It has resulted in 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. And it has resulted in a system that serves no

penological purpose. Such a system is unconstitutional. Accordingly, the Court hereby

VACATES Mr. Jones’s death sentence.

 DATED: July 16, 2014

 __________________________________

 CORMAC J. CARNEY

 UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
p.29


Not a partisan issue:

"The George W. Bush-appointed judge disagreed with the common perception that executions have been thwarted by death penalty opponents outside the system, pointing out that the average inmate on Death Row waits three and a half years to get a court-appointed lawyer."

http://www.allgov.com/usa/ca/news/top-stories/federal-judge-strikes-down-already-stalled-california-death-penalty-140717?news=853712