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U.S. | 'I comfort death row inmates in their final moments - the execution room is like a house of horrors'

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Reverend Jeff Hood, 40, wants to help condemned inmates 'feel human again' and vows to continue his efforts to befriend murderers in spite of death threats against his family A reverend who has made it his mission to comfort death row inmates in their final days has revealed the '"moral torture" his endeavor entails. Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood, 40, lives with his wife and five children in Little Rock, Arkansas. But away from his normal home life, he can suddenly find himself holding the shoulder of a murderer inside an execution chamber, moments away from the end of their life. 

Switzerland: Death penalty initiative not quite dead

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Just days after it was withdrawn, the initiative to reinstate the death penalty in Switzerland is making news again.

Marcel Graf, the initiative committee’s spokesman, has called on Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf to ensure that capital criminals are tried and sentenced within a year.

In an interview with the Aarau-based Sonntag newspaper, Graf said that he would pass the initiative on to others if the justice minister was unable to promise speedier punishment.

Graf said that a huge lobby was interested in reviving the initiative and that he had received hundreds of emails. Many people mailed in petition forms full of signatures.

Widmer-Schlumpf is against the death penalty, but has said that she can understand the frustration of the committee members, who are related to a victim.

Switzerland struck capital punishment from its criminal statutes in 1942.

Source: swissinfo.ch, August 30, 2010
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