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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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Idaho Senate takes aim at firing squad option

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The Idaho Senate voted to take the firing squad off the law books as an alternative method of execution.

The bill passed 33-2 Monday. It's already cleared the House and now goes to Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter for signature.

According to the Idaho State Historical Society, the state has never executed someone by firing squad.

But it remained a possibility, as a backup should a Department of Correction director decide lethal injection was impractical.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, two people in the United States have died by firing squad, both in Utah: Gary Gilmore, made famous in a book by Norman Mailer, in 1977 and John Albert Taylor in 1996.

But Utah did away with firing squads in 2004.

"We're the only state left with it," said Sen. Denton Darrington, a Declo Republican, before the Senate vote.

Source: Associated Press, March 24, 2009
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