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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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Texas executes Samuel Bustamante

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Condemned Texas inmate Samuel Bustamante (pictured) was executed Tuesday evening after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block his punishment for the fatal stabbing of an illegal immigrant from Mexico during an attempted robbery a dozen years ago.

Bustamante, 40, was the seventh prisoner executed this year in the nation's most active death penalty state.

He was convicted of the 1998 slaying of Rafael Alvarado, 27, a Mexican national in Fort Bend County, southwest of Houston, who became a target on what Bustamante and some of his friends called "shopping trips" where they would hunt illegal immigrants, then beat and rob them.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, refused an appeal Monday from Bustamante, sending the case to the Supreme Court. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles also declined a clemency request.

The high court rejected his appeal less than 90 minutes before he was scheduled for lethal injection.

In their appeal, attorneys said Bustamante "clearly suffers from mental retardation" and should be spared under a Supreme Court ruling that bars execution of the mentally impaired.

"We are all human, and make mistakes, yet do we not deserve the benefit of the doubt?" Bustamante, who declined to speak with reporters, said on a website where prisoners seek pen pals.

Bustamante, 40, said nothing, shaking his head when asked by the warden if wanted to make a final statement. He took several nearly inaudible breaths as the lethal drugs took effect, then slipped into unconsciousness as 4 female friends he invited to the death chamber watched.

8 minutes later, at 6:22 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead.

No friends or relatives of his victim were present.

Fred Felcman, a Fort Bend County assistant district attorney who was the lead prosecutor at Bustamante's trial in 2001, said the condemned killer's sentiment was "a classic thing."

At least nine other condemned Texas prisoners have execution dates approaching soon.

Up next is Kevin Varga, 41, a Michigan native and South Dakota ex-con set to die May 12 for fatally beating a North Carolina man with a hammer and tree limb. One of his accomplices, Billy Galloway, 41, is scheduled to die the following day.

Source: DallasNews.com, April 27, 2010
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