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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.

Oklahoma asks Supreme Court to halt upcoming executions

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Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general, said Monday he was asking the U.S. Supreme Court to postpone three upcoming executions in the state.

There are three executions scheduled in Oklahoma over the next six weeks, with the first currently taking place Thursday. But last week, the Supreme Court announced that they would hear arguments over Oklahoma’s lethal injection procedures in response to a petition filed by the three inmates who are set for execution.

The justices are going to consider whether the protocol currently used by Oklahoma violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Pruitt said Friday that his office would “defend the constitutionality of this protocol” in front of the Supreme Court.

Oklahoma adopted its current lethal injection procedure last year after the botched execution of Clayton Lockett, who grimaced and kicked before dying 43 minutes after the execution began. That execution was one of three problematic lethal injections last year that involved the sedative midazolam.


Source: The Washington Post, January 26, 2015

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Location: Oklahoma City, OK, USA
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