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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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Death for Qatari for killing British teacher

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Doha: A Doha court on Thursday sentenced a Qatari national to death for the murder last year of 24-year-old British teacher Lauren Patterson, a judicial source said.

A second Qatari, Mohammad Hassan Abdul Aziz, was given three years in prison for aiding the first convict, Badr Khamis Abdullah Hashim, in “burning the body of Lauren Patterson and erasing evidence” of the murder, the source said.

The men were arrested after the teacher’s charred remains were found by campers near Doha.

Patterson, who taught at a primary school in Doha, was last seen leaving the night club of a luxury hotel with two men, British media had reported. Her body was found soon afterwards.

In October, the interior ministry announced that Qatari security forces had made arrests over the murder, without giving details on the circumstances surrounding her death.

According to rights group Death Penalty Worldwide, the last judicial killing in Qatar was in 2003 when a murderer was executed by firing squad.

Source: Agence France-Presse, March 27, 2014
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