One day after California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced she’d take legal action to defend California’s much debated death penalty law, Harris quietly tied the knot last Friday at the Santa Barbara County courthouse with Douglas Emhoff, a Los Angeles based attorney, in a ceremony presided over by her sister, Maya Harris.

While details on the nuptials remain sparse, Harris proved vocal about her decision to appeal a ruling by federal judge Cormac J. Carney, who concluded last month that California’s death penalty has become so dysfunctional as to constitute cruel and unusual punishment and hence, unconstitutional.

Because the ultimate punishment is so rarely implemented in California, Carney argued, death row inmates are seven times more likely to die from old age or suicide than a lethal injection. This, he claimed, undermined any value it might have in terms of deterrence or retribution. Harris described Carney’s reasoning as “flawed,” adding his conclusions were “not supported by law.”

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