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Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

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A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.

Texas Lockdown: Solitary Confinement in the Lone Star State

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“The most locked-down state in the nation” is how Robert Perkinson, author of the book Texas Tough, describes the Lone Star state. Texas, he writes, has “led the way in criminal justice severity” in everything from executions to trying juvenile as adults – and solitary confinement is no exception. In 2010, Texas held 8,701 of its 154,795 inmates in what it calls “administrative segregation”–the second highest number in the country after California. And Texas was one of the few states that last year saw its number of inmates in segregation increase while its overall prison population decreased.

Texas’s administrative segregation units deprive prisoners of all human contact. Bartlett Whitaker, in solitary confinement on death row, writes: “I am not even sure that a man who has completely disconnected from the world should still be called ‘human’ to be honest with you.” For 23 hours every day, inmates stay in tiny and often windowless cells; most are permitted one hour of solitary recreation time. Texas segregation units forbid contact visits for inmates, while telephone use is severely limited and sometimes prohibited altogether. Inmates do not have access to rehabilitative or educational programs. Prisoners placed in solitary remain there, on average, for more than four years, though some have been in isolation for up 25 years. Former inmates say that once placed in isolation, it is extremely difficult to be allowed to re-join populated prison units and many prisoners finish their sentences in solitary cells.


Source: Solitary Watch, July 6, 2011

Texas' Death Row is a disgrace to the state of Texas. Click here to view 50 recent annotated pictures of the 'living' conditions on Texas' Death Row. These photos were provided by the State of Texas in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by attorney Yolanda Torres. They were then posted on Thomas Whitaker's blog, "Minutes Before Six". Mr. Whitaker is currently on Death Row in the state of Texas.

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Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

Published
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A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.
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Mississippi asks court to set execution for man on death row since 1976

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi attorney general on Tuesday requested an execution date for the state’s longest-serving death row inmate. Richard Gerald Jordan, now 78, was sentenced to death in 1976 for the kidnapping and killing of Edwina Marter earlier that year in Harrison County. The Mississippi Supreme Court rejected Jordan’s latest appeal Tuesday, and Attorney General Lynn Fitch filed papers hours later asking the court to set a date for the lethal injection.
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Texas executes Garcia Glenn White

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A Texas man convicted of fatally stabbing twin 16-year-old girls more than 3 decades ago was executed on Tuesday evening.  Garcia Glenn White was pronounced dead at 6:56 p.m. CDT following a chemical injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the December 1989 killings of Annette and Bernette Edwards. The bodies of the twin girls and their mother, Bonita Edwards, were found in their Houston apartment. White, 61, was the 6th inmate put to death in the U.S. in the last 11 days. His execution took place shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, rejected 3 last-ditch appeals.
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Idaho Department of Correction Renovating to Accommodate Firing Squad Executions

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The Idaho Department of Correction is renovating the execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution near Kuna, according to building permits from the Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses. The change comes after the failed execution attempt of 74-year-old Thomas Creech on Feb. 28, in which the medical team could not establish an IV line to carry out his execution by lethal injection.  The department called off his execution.
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Iran Executes Two in Public Amid Rising Death Penalty Use

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The Islamic Republic's authorities have executed two people in public. The executions come amidst a concerning trend of increasing use of the death penalty in the country. Ebrahim Gamizi, the prosecutor of central Khomein, announced that the sentence of two "armed robbers responsible for the death of Second Lieutenant Morteza Barati” was carried out in public. According to ISNA news agency, the execution took place on Monday morning in Khomein, located in the central Markazi Province.
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Texas serial killer to be executed Tuesday for murders of teenage twin girls in 1989

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Texas serial murderer Garcia Glen White is scheduled for execution this week for the murders of 16-year-old identical twin sisters and their mother in 1989. This will be the nation's sixth execution in a 10-day period. But White's attorneys argue that his mental deficiencies − combined with prolonged use of crack cocaine − are more to blame than White, described by those who knew him as a gentle giant whose life went off the rails because of football injuries, job loss and an ensuing drug addiction.
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Singapore | Man, 47, faces execution on 4 October 2024 for drug trafficking

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Singaporean authorities are reportedly set to execute Mohammad Azwan Bin Bohari (“Azwan“), a 47-year-old Singaporean, on Friday, 4 October 2024. A copy of an execution notice dated 30 September 2024 from the Singapore Prisons Service was published by local rights group Transformative Justice Collective (“TJC“) on Instagram.  According to TJC, this is the second execution notice that Azwan’s family received this year. The first scheduled execution in April 2024 was halted as Azwan had a “pending case” before the Courts, TJC said.
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Pakistani citizen executed in Saudi Arabia over drug smuggling

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JEDDAH – A Pakistani citizen has been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia on charges of heroin smuggling. The Saudi Ministry of Interior stated that a Pakistani named Nadeem Shahzad was arrested for heroin smuggling.  A local court sentenced him to death after the crime was proven, a decision that was upheld by the appellate court and the Supreme Court. It added that the execution of the death penalty was carried out today, September 30, in Dammam.
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USA | With more support than ever for innocence claim, Richard Glossip prepped for round 2 at SCOTUS on Oct. 9

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Convincing a Republican attorney general to advocate against a death sentence is a near impossible feat, but Supreme Court roadblocks could force Oklahoma to execute a man in a conviction it doesn’t accept. WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court handed Richard Glossip one loss in 2015 — and if not for a corrections department blunder, he’d be dead. Almost a decade later, Glossip returns to the high court a second time, bringing the justices mountains of support for another trial and hoping a procedural hurdle doesn’t end his case for innocence before it can begin.
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