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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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In impassioned plea, Bali Nine member Myuran Sukumaran calls for second chance, asking simply “Please show us mercy”

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Myuran Sukumaran
DEATH row inmate Myuran Sukumaran has vowed that his spirit will not be broken by the decision to send him to the firing squad.

In an impassioned plea through a friend, the 33-year-old Bali Nine drug runner called for a second chance, asking simply “Please show us mercy”.

He told a News Corp Australia crew inside Indonesia’s Kerobokan jail for a religious ceremony that he was doing all right despite hearing only a day earlier that his last chance at beating death row, Presidential clemency, had been rejected.

The Sydney man attended the ceremony for a short time and exclusive News Corp photos show Sukumaran spending time in the art workshop, where he has set up and runs art classes and other rehabilitation programs for fellow prisoners.

In a decision signed on December 30 and delivered to Sukumaran on Wednesday, Indonesia’s President, Joko Widodo, rejected his clemency plea.

Sukumaran’s Australian lawyer, Julian McMahon, said the case was not about jeopardising a relationship but about highlighting Sukumaran’s rehabilitation.

“This is not a discussion about jeopardising relationships. What is needed is for our Government, presumably behind closed doors, to fully explain the rehabilitation of Sukumaran. This is such a meritorious argument that it enables our Government to ask humbly, for some clemency,” Mr McMahon said.

“I have full confidence the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister will do their utmost to win this argument.”

Speaking through friends, Sukumaran told of the misery that his close knit family is suffering and pleaded with Indonesian authorities to look beyond his crime to the good rehabilitative work he is doing behind bars.

“We have been living under the shadow of death for so long and it’s killing my family. It’s eating slowly, it’s a miserable way to live. I feel completely lost about this decision and really don’t know.

“But I won’t let them break my spirit. I will keep doing what is right and at the end of the day when I stand before judgment I will be judged on who I am and what I’ve done,” Sukumaran said.


Source: news.com.au, January 8, 2015

Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com
Location: Indonesia
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