[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] on Thursday reversed [opinion, PDF] a lower court decision that had held that California’s death penalty system was unconstitutional [JURIST report]. The appeals court held that the excessive delay between sentencing and execution did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Ninth Circuit Judge Susan Graber in writing the majority opinion stated, “[b]ecause Petitioner asks us to apply a novel constitutional rule, we may not assess the substantive validity of his claim.” Currently, California has the largest death row population [WP report] in the nation and has not recently carried out any executions.

Use of the death penalty remains a controversial issue throughout the US. In a recent JURIST op-ed, guest columnist John Bessler discussed new changes in the evolution of capital punishment [JURIST op-ed]. Last month a judge for the US District Court for the District of Utah denied an appeal [JURIST report] by 74-year-old death row inmate Ron Lafferty to place a hold on his federal case to challenge his execution by firing squad. In September an Oklahoma appeals court granted an emergency stay of execution [JURIST report] for inmate Richard Glossip several hours before he was scheduled for his sentence. In June the US Supreme Court held that the use of the drug midazolam may be used in executions [JURIST report] without violating the constitution. In April the Tennessee Supreme Court postponed the execution [JURIST report] of four inmates on death row while it determines whether current protocols are constitutional, effectively halting all executions in the state. Also in April the Delaware Senate voted to repeal the death penalty [JURIST report], but the legislation includes an exemption for the 15 inmates currently on death row.