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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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New execution in Saudi Arabia

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April 25, 2010: A Saudi man was decapitated by the sword in the eastern city of Dammam, in Saudi Arabia, after being sentenced to death for murdering another Saudi man, the government announced.

Saleh al-Ghamdi was executed after being convicted in the shooting death of Idha al-Jaid following a dispute, the interior ministry said in a statement published by the official SPA news agency.

It was the ninth reported execution of the year in Saudi Arabia.

Sources: AFP, April 26, 2010
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