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Biden Commuted Their Death Sentences. Now What?

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As three men challenge their commutations, others brace for imminent prison transfers and the finality of a life sentence with no chance of release. In the days after President Joe Biden commuted his death sentence, 40-year-old Rejon Taylor felt like he’d been reborn. After facing execution for virtually his entire adult life for a crime he committed at 18, he was fueled by a new sense of purpose. He was “a man on a mission,” he told me in an email on Christmas Day. “I will not squander this opportunity of mercy, of life.”
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Saudi Arabia: man beheaded; body nailed to cross

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Saudi Arabia executed 2 murderers including a Yemeni whose body was nailed to a cross after he was convicted of killing a fellow countryman and his daughter, the interior ministry said on Monday.

Shaaban al-Nasheri was beheaded for shooting dead Dhayeh al-Manbahi after barging into his family home in the southwestern town of Jazan, the ministry said in a statement cited by the official SPA agency.

Nasheri was also found guilty of raping and killing Manbahi's daughter before shooting and wounding her sister.

Following his execution, the murderer's body was nailed to a cross in Jazan.

In the 2nd case, Saudi national Mohammed al-Zahrani was decapitated in El-Baha, in the southwest, for shooting dead compatriot Said al-Zahrani over a land dispute.

The beheadings bring to 15 the number of executions reported in the ultra-conservative Gulf monarchy this year, according to an AFP count. In 2009, there were 67 reported executions in the kingdom, compared with 102 in 2008.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery, homosexuality and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic law. In extreme cases, the convict is executed and his body crucified in public.

Source: Agence France-Presse, June 21, 2010
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