In a decision that could wipe California’s death penalty off the books, a Los Angeles federal judge has declared the state’s capital punishment law unconstitutional because of the decades death row inmates must inevitably wait before execution.

Calling the state’s death penalty system “dysfunctional” and beyond repair, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney concluded that death sentences in California have been transformed into “life in prison, with the remote possibility of death.”

With no indication the state will be able to fix its problems, the judge determined in the case of death row inmate Ernest Dewayne Jones that the entire system must be scrapped, although it will take further appeals — and likely years — to reach that outcome. Jones has been on death row nearly two decades for the 1992 rape and murder of a 50-year-old Southern California accountant.

“When an individual is condemned to death in California, the sentence carries with it an implicit promise from the state that it will actually be carried out,” wrote the 2003 Republican appointee of former President George W. Bush. “But for too long now, the promise has been an empty one. … It has resulted in a system that serves no penological purpose.”

In the short term, the decision will not have much effect in California, where executions have been on hold since 2006 because of legal challenges to the state’s lethal injection method. At least 17 death row inmates have exhausted all their legal appeals and face execution, but none are likely to be scheduled for the foreseeable future — the state has yet to even put in place an updated lethal injection method that can be reviewed by the courts.

The judge cited that reality in his ruling, which noted that more than 40 percent of the state’s 748 condemned killers, like Jones, have spent at least 19 years on death row, many of them much longer as their appeals drag through the system. Clarence Ray Allen, the last inmate executed in California, spent 26 years on death row.

“The delay is systemic, and the state itself is to blame,” Carney wrote.

If the judge’s decision survives on appeal, far from a foregone conclusion, it could accomplish in the courts what death penalty foes have been unable to carry out at the ballot box. Condemned inmates in California and other states have raised the issue of death row delays in many cases, but no death penalty law has been invalidated. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to rule on the issue.

Legal experts say the Supreme Court may be reluctant to back Carney’s reasoning, although some justices, notably Justice Stephen Breyer, have indicated they want to address the question. And experts say California’s systemic problems may give the high court the right case to do that.

“California does sort of stand as the epitome of this dysfunction,” said Douglas Berman, an Ohio State University law professor who runs a popular blog on sentencing law and policy.

State Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office was reviewing the ruling and had no immediate comment. The state is expected to appeal the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said the Supreme Court is unlikely to back the argument, regardless of how the 9th Circuit rules. “It can’t fly,” he said.

Scheidegger and others had hoped to put a measure on this November’s ballot that might accelerate the state’s death penalty process but backed off earlier this year. Three former California governors had supported the proposed measure.

Barbara Christian, whose 17-year-old daughter, Terri Lynn Winchell, was murdered in Lodi 34 years ago by death row inmate Michael Morales, was outraged by the decision. Morales was on the brink of execution in 2006 when his challenge to lethal injection prompted a federal judge to put the death penalty on hold.

“It is sickening to know that murderers who commit atrocious crimes and destroy victims families for life will not have to pay for their crime,” Christian said. “Why do taxpayers have to pay for their upkeep, meals, medical and livelihood in prison for the rest of their lives?”

Death penalty opponents failed two years ago to persuade voters to abolish the death penalty when Proposition 34 was defeated by a 52 to 48 percent margin. They believe death row inmates around the state can now use the ruling in Jones’ case as ammunition in every appeal, and the ruling could also be used as fodder if anti-death penalty groups try another ballot measure.

“I don’t think (the judge) sees California as able to dig itself out of this,” said Ellen Kreitzberg, a Santa Clara University law professor and death penalty opponent.

Howard Mintz covers legal affairs. Contact him at 408-286-0236. Follow him at Twitter.com/hmintz.