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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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Idaho Supreme Court says it won’t reconsider death row clemency case

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State may still seek death warrant for Gerald Ross Pizzuto Jr.

The Idaho Supreme Court says it will not reconsider the clemency case of a terminally ill man who is facing execution for his role in the 1985 slayings of 2 gold prospectors near McCall.

The high court made the decision Friday in Gerald Ross Pizzuto Jr.’s case. The decision means the state remains free to seek a death warrant for Pizzuto. Once issued, the warrant would set Pizzuto’s execution by lethal injection in the next 30 days.

Deborah A. Czuba, the head of the Federal Defender Services of Idaho’s capital case unit, said in a prepared statement that the Idaho Supreme Court decision was disappointing.

“There is still time for Gov. Brad Little to accept the recommendation of his parole commissioners and let Mr. Pizzuto die a natural death in prison,” Czuba said. “If not, our hope is that the state will have enough grace to wait at least until after the Thanksgiving and Christmas season before making Department of Correction employees participate in a needless and traumatizing execution during the holidays.”

Pizzuto has spent more than three decades on death row and was originally scheduled to be put to death in June of 2021. He asked for clemency last year because he has terminal bladder cancer, heart disease, diabetes and decreased intellectual function.

The Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole voted 4-3 to recommend that his sentence be changed to life in prison, citing the torture and abuse he experienced as a child and his health problems. But Little rejected the recommendation, noting the brutal nature of Pizzuto’s crimes and pointing out that the slayings occurred shortly after Pizzuto was released from prison after serving time for rape.

Pizzuto’s attorneys appealed the matter to the Idaho Supreme Court, contending that the governor lacked the authority to reject the commission’s recommendation. But the high court ruled in August that the governor’s decision to overrule the recommendation was legal.

Source: The Lewiston Tribune, Staff, October 29, 2022





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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: Idaho, USA
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