Summary
Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision overturning a federal judge's 2014 ruling, which voided the death sentence of rapist/murderer Ernest Dewayne Jones because delays in enforcing the law in California meant that executing murderers "will serve no retributive or deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary." Jones was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1992 rape and murder of his girlfriend's mother. Substantial evidence, including a DNA match of his sperm in the victim's body, confirmed his guilt. Jones had been convicted of raping another woman six years earlier. CJLF had joined the appeal of the judge's ruling to argue that much of the delay in death penalty cases is the result of repeated and lengthy reviews by the federal courts and cannot be blamed on the state. Also, the judge's ruling created a new rule of law on habeas corpus, which violates U. S. Supreme Court precedent (won by CJLF).
