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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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Texas: 2 condemned killers sue for execution-drug details

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AUSTIN - Two condemned killers, including a onetime drifter who once claimed he killed 70 people in a cross-country crime spree spanning 19 years, sued state officials on Wednesday to force them to disclose details about the execution drugs that will be used to end their lives.

In a lawsuit filed in Travis County state court, Tommy Lynn Sells, 49, and Ramiro Hernandez Llanes, 44, alleged that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is illegally refusing to provide their attorneys with information about the powerful barbiturate pento­barbital that will be used to execute them, despite earlier court orders and attorney general opinions requiring that information be made public. 

The suit comes just days after Texas prison officials announced that they had obtained an additional supply of the state's execution drug, but would not disclose anything about the suppliers, manufacturers and other details about the drugs as they have in the past.

The case comes at a time when similar suits are pending in other states, as prison officials across the country are moving to keep the source of their execution drugs confidential. In recent years, several manufacturers have stopped making the drugs or prohibited their use in executions after their names were disclosed, and suppliers have quit shipping to Texas and other states for the same reason.

Because Texas operates the nation's busiest death chamber in Huntsville - 511 have been executed since 1983, including three so far this year - the case is expected to be watched closely by corrections officials and death-penalty opponents nationwide.


Source: Houston Chronicle, March 26, 2014
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