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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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San Quentin Death Row Inmate John Brown Dies At 71

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San Quentin prison, California
SAN QUENTIN (CBS SF) — An inmate who had been on death row since 1982 was found unresponsive in his San Quentin State Prison cell at 6:18 p.m. on Sunday.

Custody and medical staff performed CPR but the inmate was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m.

John George Brown, 71, was sentenced to death in Orange County for the 1980 murder of a 27-year-old police officer and assaulting two other officers who had tried to serve him a felony arrest warrant.

Since California reinstated the death penalty in 1978, 26 inmates have committed suicide, 80 have died from natural causes, 13 have been executed in California, one was executed in Missouri, one was executed in Virginia, 12 have died from other causes and six are pending cause of death, including Brown.

There are currently 734 offenders on California’s death row.

Source: CBS, Staff, July 8, 2019


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: San Quentin, CA, USA
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