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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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TEXAS: state misses execution deadline

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Texas halted the scheduled execution of a former topless club bouncer for a double slaying almost 20 years ago as time ran out.

Prison officials were faced with a midnight CDT deadline Tuesday to administer the lethal drugs to Charles Dean Hood but feared they could not follow the proper procedures in time after lengthy appeals delayed the scheduled punishment.

Hood would have been the 2nd Texas prisoner executed in as many weeks.

Hood was arrested in his native Indiana the day after the 1989 slayings of Ronald Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace at Williamson's home in the Dallas suburb of Plano.

Source: Associated Press
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