A ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney has declared California's death penalty unconstitutional, and has in turn vacated the sentence of Ernest Dewayne Jones, who was condemned to death in 1994.

Judge Carney declared that the California death penalty violates the U.S. ban on cruel and unusual punishment after ruling on a petition by death row inmate Ernest Dewayne Jones, who has been on death row for nearly two decades.

Carney's ruling comes after a similar decision in Northern California that has kept the death penalty on hold in California for years.

In his decision, Carney wrote that "inordinate and unpredictable delays have resulted in a death penalty system in which arbitrary factors determine whether an individual will actually be executed."

This ruling will vacate the death sentence of Jones, who the judge noted had experienced decades of complete uncertainty as to whether if, or when, he would be executed.

Judge Carney also noted that although more than 900 people have been sentenced to death in California since 1978, only 13 of those people have been executed.

“For the rest, the dysfunctional administration of California’s death penalty system has resulted, and will continue to result, in an inordinate and unpredictable period of delay preceding their actual execution,” Carney wrote.

Although Carney’s ruling signals big changes for the nation's outlook on the death penalty, the ruling can be appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Carney also noted that the delays have created a “system in which arbitrary factors, rather than legitimate ones like the nature of the crime or the date of the death sentence, determine whether an individual will actually be executed."

Carney also noted the lack of solid proof for using the death penalty as a deterrent for crimes, stating that the inmates “will have languished for so long on Death Row that their execution will serve no retributive or deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary."

“No rational person can question that the execution of an individual carries with it the solemn obligation of the government to ensure that the punishment is not arbitrarily imposed and that it furthers the interests of society,” Carney wrote.

Jones was sentenced to death for the 1992 rape and killing of Julia Miller, his girlfriend’s mother.

The murder was committed only 10 months after Jones was paroled for a previous rape.

A spokesman for California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris said that her office is reviewing the decision.