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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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Singapore: Will the president pardon Yong Vui Kong?

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Yong Vui Kong
Sabahan Yong Vui Kong's fate will now be determined by the newly elected president who is a devout Christian.

Malaysian drug dealer Yong Vui Kong whose race against time to save his life turned him into something of a cause celebre amidst a very animated media circus, has had his final appeal against his death penalty for drug smuggling dismissed yesterday in Singapore’s Court of Criminal Appeal.

Yong’s fate now rests in the hands of President Tony Tan Keng Yam who as a devout Christian will now have the thankless task of deciding whether to grant clemency to the young, impressionable Yong, who according to media reports and court documents was hoodwinked and weaselled into smuggling the dangerous substance across to Singapore.

The clemency appeal, if it arrives at the president’s desk will make for an interesting twist of conflicting philosophies and convictions.

For one, it will pit the newly inaugurated president’s religious beliefs of forswearing the killing of fellow humans through the often heard Christian precept of thou shall not kill, against his constitutional duties and the demands of high office.

It will also perhaps be the president’s first instance of deliberating over a pardon for a capital offender. Executions in Singapore are usually carried out some two weeks after the president rejects a pardon petition.

Sometime earlier this year, Tony Tan’s predecessor, SR Nathan at a press conference expressed what appeared to be as tinges of remorse when recounting the times he declined the clemency petitions of death row inmates.

Not a single death row inmate under the former president’s watch had been ever spared the gallows.


Source: FreeMalaysiaToday, April 5, 2012

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Click HERE to sign an online petition urging Singapore's President to commute Yong's sentence.
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