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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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Sotomayor’s first vote on death penalty

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The newest Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, on Monday night cast her first vote in a death penalty case, joining three other members of the Supreme Court in dissent as the Court permitted the execution Tuesday of an Ohio inmate, Jason Getsy, 33.

He was scheduled to die in Lucasville, Ohio, at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Sotomayor would have granted a stay of execution, along with Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens.

Sotomayor’s predecessor, retired Justice David H. Souter, frequently voted to postpone executions.

In the Court’s order, the Justices also denied Getsy’s petition for review, in Getsy v. Strickland (09-5935).

There was no indication of dissent from the denial of review of the case itself.

The Ohio Parole Board, by a vote of 5-2, recommended to Gov. Ted Strickland that he commute Getsy’s death sentence to life in prison.

The governor, however, refused, saying that the evidence of Getsy’s crime was too strong to warrant clemency.

Getsy was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of a Hubbard, Ohio, woman, Ann Sarafino.

He also was convicted of the attempted murder of her son Charles.

Source: scotusblog, August 18, 2009
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