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Just days after it was withdrawn, the initiative to reinstate the death penalty in Switzerland is making news again.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