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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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Australian man Michael Sacatides jailed for 18 years in Indonesia

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Australian man Michael Sacatides has been sentenced to 18 years in prison after being found guilty of smuggling 1.7kg of methamphetamine into Bali.

The panel of judges presiding over the case in the Denpasar District Court today found the 43-year-old guilty, while also increasing the sentence by 2 years compared to a request entered by prosecutors 2 weeks ago.

He had initially been facing the possibility of a death sentence for smuggling $A390,000 worth of methamphetamine, also known as ice, into Bali from Thailand.

Sacatides was arrested at Bali's international airport on October 1 last year when customs officers noticed the drugs concealed in a hidden compartment in the suitcase he was carrying when he arrived on a flight from Bangkok.

The kickboxing trainer from Sydney's west has always maintained his innocence, telling investigators at the time of his arrest that he had borrowed the luggage from a man known as Akaleshi Tripathi, whom he knew from Bangkok, where he had been living and working for almost 2 years.

Tripathi, alias Peter, has never been found.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, April 25, 2011
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