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U.S. | I'm a Death Row Pastor. They're Just Ordinary Folks

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In the early 1970s I was a North Carolinian, white boy from the South attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and working in East Harlem as part of a program. In my senior year, I visited men at the Bronx House of Detention. I had never been in a prison or jail, but people in East Harlem were dealing with these places and the police all the time. This experience truly turned my life around.

Pennsylvania: Man with 74 IQ can't be executed for Philadelphia officer slaying

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Pennsylvania's high court says a man convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer can't be executed because he has an IQ of 74.

The state Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that Edward Bracey's below-average intellectual functioning made him ineligible for the death penalty.

Bracey is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole in the 1991 murder of 21-year-old officer Daniel Boyle.

Boyle's sister, Kathleen Wrigley, is the wife of North Dakota Lt. Gov. Drew Wrigley.

The Pennsylvania court voted 4-1 to uphold Judge M. Teresa Sarmina's January 2014 ruling sparing the 52-year-old Bracey.

The U.S. Supreme Court has barred execution of anyone deemed mentally disabled by a state.

Source: Associated Press, June 20, 2015

Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
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