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As clock ticks toward another Trump presidency, federal death row prisoners appeal for clemency

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President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office is putting a spotlight on the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, which houses federal death row. In Bloomington, a small community of death row spiritual advisors is struggling to support the prisoners to whom they minister.  Ross Martinie Eiler is a Mennonite, Episcopal lay minister and member of the Catholic Worker movement, which assists the homeless. And for the past three years, he’s served as a spiritual advisor for a man on federal death row.
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U.S. Supreme Court stays execution of ex-Army recruiter Cleve Foster

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HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A former Army recruiter who maintained his innocence in the rape-slaying of a woman in Fort Worth nine years ago has received a reprieve from execution Tuesday evening.

Forty-seven-year-old Cleve Foster's lethal injection was stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court so it can further review an appeal. In the court's brief order, Justices Antonin Scalia and Sam Alito indicated they would have allowed the punishment to proceed.

Foster has insisted a friend was responsible for fatally shooting 30-year-old Nyaneur Pal, who had fled Sudan for Texas. The friend, Sheldon Ward, one of Foster's recruits, also was condemned for the slaying. He died of cancer last year while in prison. Foster's lawyers said the evidence did not support his conviction.

Foster and Ward also were implicated but never tried in the slaying of 22-year-old Rachel Urnosky in Fort Worth several weeks before Pal's murder.

Source: AP, January 11, 2011
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