A federal judge has struck down the death penalty in California on the grounds sentences are carried out in an “arbitrary” and “random” manner. In his ruling, Judge Cormac Carney wrote the state’s system “[is] so plagued by inordinate delay that the death sentence is actually carried out against only a trivial few of those sentenced to death.” Carney said the delays and unpredictable outcomes amount to “cruel and unusual punishment.” Hundreds of prisoners are on California’s death row, but no executions have been carried out since 2006, when a federal judge ruled against lethal injections.