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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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Condemned Duo Scheduled For Lethal Injection One Day Apart

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Two condemned Hunt County killers have been given execution dates. Kevin Scott Varga and Billy John Galloway, both 39, are scheduled to die by lethal injection within one day of each other this May, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Varga and Galloway were convicted in the 1998 beating death of a man while they robbed him for his wallet and rental car. Prosecutors said the duo and one other person beat the victim with their fists, feet, a hammer and a tree limb—killing him.

They were arrested during a routine traffic stop in San Antonio in the victim’s rented vehicle.

Varga, a former construction worker, was originally from Michigan and had a 6th grade education, according to TDCJ records. Prior to the capital murder conviction, Varga spent 13 years in a South Dakota prison for two separate sentences of burglary and grand theft.

Prior to this sentence Galloway also spent time in the South Dakota Department of Corrections for grand theft, parole violations and attempted robbery. He was paroled and let of jail early in 1998 just three months before the Hunt County murder. Galloway was from New York and also had only a 6th grade education, court records show.

Source: nbcdfw.com, Feb. 21, 2010
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