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To U.S. Death Row Inmates, Today's Election is a Matter of Life or Death

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You don't have to tell Daniel Troya and the 40 other denizens of federal death row locked in shed-sized solitary cells for 23 hours a day, every day, that elections have consequences. To them, from inside the U.S. government's only death row located in Terre Haute, Indiana, Tuesday's election is quite literally a matter of life and death: If Kamala Harris wins, they live; if Donald Trump wins, they die. "He's gonna kill everyone here that he can," Troya, 41, said in an email from behind bars. "That's as easy to predict as the sun rising."
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USA | Ex-Minneapolis officer charged in George Floyd's death is released on $750,000 bond

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To Serve With Compassion: Ex-Minneapolis officer Thomas Lane
(CNN) -- One of the four former Minneapolis police officers awaiting trial in the death of George Floyd has been released on $750,000 bond.

Thomas Lane, 37, was released Wednesday afternoon from the Hennepin County jail, the facility's website reads.

Lane was one of four officers involved in arresting Floyd on Memorial Day on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. 

The arrest led to Floyd's death, which has sparked global protests against racial injustice and police misconduct.

Bystander video shows then-Officer Derek Chauvin pressing his knee on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd was on the ground outside a police vehicle.

Lane and another officer held down other parts of Floyd's body, next to Chauvin, authorities said in a probable cause statement.

Floyd, after repeatedly saying he couldn't breathe, became unresponsive. 

He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder. Lane and the two other officers on the scene -- Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng -- have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Lane's attorney has said Lane, while Chauvin was pressing on Floyd's neck, suggested more than once that they roll the Floyd to his side, but Chauvin declined.

"I am worried about excited delirium or whatever," Lane said, according to authorities' probable cause statement. 

"That's why we have him on his stomach," Chauvin replied, according to the document.

From L to R: Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao
Lane had been on the police force for four days when Floyd died and was "doing everything he thought he was supposed to do as a four-day police officer," his attorney, Earl Gray, told CNN this week.

The Hennepin County medical examiner's office concluded the manner of Floyd's death was homicide and that the cause was "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression." 

Cardiopulmonary arrest means Floyd's heart failed.

A different autopsy, conducted by experts hired by Floyd's family, concluded Floyd died of "asphyxiation from sustained pressure" when his neck and back were compressed. 

The pressure cut off blood flow to his brain, that autopsy determined.

Source: CNN, Jason Hanna, June 11, 2020


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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: Minneapolis, MN, USA
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To U.S. Death Row Inmates, Today's Election is a Matter of Life or Death

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