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Biden Fails a Death Penalty Abolitionist’s Most Important Test

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The mystery of Joe Biden’s views about capital punishment has finally been solved. His decision to grant clemency to 37 of the 40 people on federal death row shows the depth of his opposition to the death penalty. And his decision to leave three of America’s most notorious killers to be executed by a future administration shows the limits of his abolitionist commitment. The three men excluded from Biden’s mass clemency—Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers—would no doubt pose a severe test of anyone’s resolve to end the death penalty. Biden failed that test.
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Bali Nine sweat on death penalty inside Kerobokan Jail

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BALI Nine members facing the death penalty have told how they try not to think about the prospect of capital punishment.

Three of them – Andrew Chan, Myuran Sukumaran and Scott Rush – are expected to launch final appeals against the death penalty this year, with lawyers for Rush saying his could be lodged next month.

Chan and Sukumaran, sentenced on the basis they were the heroin gang's ringleaders, say they now try to keep thoughts of the death penalty to the back of their minds. Instead, they try to focus on helping to run educational programs for prisoners, saying it gives them a new purpose behind bars.

Next month marks five years since the nine were arrested in Bali and charged with the attempted trafficking of 8.2kg of heroin from Bali to Australia.

Five of the nine are now involved in helping to run English, computer and graphic design courses, boxing classes and an art class as well as arranging for a silversmith course inside the jail and for some guards and prisoners to do a first-aid course.

With Chan, Sukumaran and Rush yet to lodge their latest appeals, any death penalty not overturned would in reality take a long time to be carried out. There are more than 100 prisoners in Indonesia on death row, but no death penalties have been carried out since the November 2008 execution of the three Bali bombers.


Source: couriermail.com.au, March 26, 2010
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