Democrat presidential hopeful Kamala Harris is praising California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order granting reprieves to 737 death-row inmates in the state. But as California’s attorney general, Harris defended capital punishment.
In 2015, a federal district court judge ruled that an excessive delay in the execution of rapist-murderer Ernest Jones violated the Eighth Amendment barring cruel and unusual punishment, declaring California’s death penalty unconstitutional. Prosecutors led by Harris won an appeal against that ruling.
At the time of the case, the San Francisco Chronicle posed the question, “Why Does Kamala Harris Defend the Death Penalty?”