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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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Tennessee's top court denies death row challenge to execution by electrocution

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NASHVILLE -- The Tennessee Supreme Court today turned down a challenge by state death row inmates to the use of electrocution has an alternative executive method, calling it premature and "unripe" for consideration.

In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Connie Clark says that "because the death-sentenced inmates are not currently subject to execution by electrocution and will not ever become subject to execution by electrocution unless one of two statutory contingencies occurs in the future, their claims challenging the constitutionality of the 2014 statute and electrocution as a means of execution are not ripe."

The court reversed a Davidson County Chancery Court judge's decision which denied the state's motion to dismiss and dismissed the "electrocution claims as unripe, and remand this matter to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this decision."

State lawmakers passed the 2014 law in response to efforts by death row inmates' attorneys to challenge Tennessee's use of lethal injections to execute convicted murderers.

Source: Times Free Press, Andy Sher, July 2, 2015

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