What the ruling on California’s death penalty means

Elisabeth Semel interviewed by Uprising Radio, July 18, 2014

“The delays are fundamentally, primarily, the function of the state’s inability to move these cases any more quickly. The process is arbitrary; there is no rational distinction between individuals who are ultimately executed and those who are not—and instead spend twenty-five plus years on death row—and that in essence violates the 8th amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.”