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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.

Arizona executes Robert Moormann

Robert Moormann
Robert Moormann, who killed his mother and chopped her into pieces during a compassionate leave from prison 28 years ago, was put to death Wednesday morning by lethal injection.

Moments before the lethal injection began, Moormann smiled at the witnesses assembled behind glass nearby. In his last words, he apologized to his family and to his victim in a 1972 abduction and rape.

"I hope that this will bring closure and they can start the healing now," he said. "And I just hope they will forgive me in time."

It was the first Arizona execution carried out with a single drug instead of a three-drug cocktail. But result was the same. Execution started at 10:23 and ended at 10:33, roughly the same amount of time that the execution with the three-drug protocol took. Moormann died with a peaceful look on his face.

Moormann's execution at Arizona State Prison Complex - Florence came after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court denied last minute requests for a stay late Tuesday and early Wednesday.

Prison officials fulfilled Moormann's Tuesday night request for a last meal consisting of a hamburger, fries, two beef burritos, three RC Colas and rocky road ice cream.

Wednesday morning, Moormann met with a Catholic deacon, telling him he was "ready to go home" and that he hoped there would be healing after his execution. According to prison officials, he prayed, took communion and said, "I trust God."

Moormann died within a few hundred yards of where he committed one of the more bizarre and brutal murders in Arizona history.


Source: AZCentral.com, Feb. 29, 2012

Related articles:
Feb 25, 2012
After 5 hours of testimony Friday, the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency refused to commute the death sentence of Robert Moormann, who murdered and dismembered his mother in Florence in 1984. Moormann, 63, is ...
Feb 20, 2012
Arizona death-row inmate Robert Moormann, who is scheduled to be executed Feb.29, was transported to an unnamed hospital Thursday after falling ill at the state prison in Florence, his attorney confirmed. The Arizona ...
Feb 24, 2012
Wake's ruling cleared one of several efforts to get the executions of Robert Henry Moormann and Robert Charles Towery stopped or delayed. Both men still have clemency hearings scheduled and other pending legal findings...
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