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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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Ohio executes triggerman in murder-for-hire scheme

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Ohio has executed the triggerman in a 1995 murder-for-hire scheme that killed a 66-year-old woman and severely injured her son.

33-year-old Jason Getsy was pronounced dead at 10:29 a.m. Tuesday in the death chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville.

Getsy was sentenced to die for fatally shooting Ann Serafino in a crime that targeted her son, Charles Serafino, in a dispute over a lawn care business.

Charles Serafino was shot 7 times but survived and witnessed Getsy's execution Tuesday.

Getsy becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Ohio and the 32nd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1999. The state has at least 1 execution scheduled for every month through next February.

Getsy becomes the 36th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1172nd overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin, August 18, 2009
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Biden Fails a Death Penalty Abolitionist’s Most Important Test

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