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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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USA | Nearly 300 organizations send letter to Biden to end death penalty

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On the 2-year anniversary of President Biden’s inauguration hundreds of organizations representing millions of Americans sent an updated organizational letter to President Biden and the Attorney General, calling on him to follow through on his campaign promises to work to end the federal and military death penalty in the United States.

News of the letter comes after the Biden Administration declined this week to seek the death penalty for a White racist domestic terrorist while pursuing a death sentence for a Muslim terrorist.

“We are urging President Biden, Merrick Garland and their advisors to do everything they can to stop seeking new federal and military death sentences, commute the existing death sentences under their jurisdiction, and to order the demolition of the federal death house at Terre Haute, Indiana,” said Rev. Sharon Risher, Chairwoman of the board of directors of Death Penalty Action.

Risher’s mother, 2 cousins and 6 others were killed by a White supremacist currently on federal death row for the infamous 2015 mass shooting in a South Carolina church.

Risher advocates to end the death penalty “because his death sentence lingers over me and my family too, and we don’t want to be reminded of his horrific actions every time another appeal comes up.”

300 Organizations urge federal halt to death penalty


Death Penalty Action, an organization created in 2017 to oppose anticipated executions in the Trump Administration, has been working with members of Congress to lead public support for passage of the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act.

The bill is co-sponsored by Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Senator Richard Durbin, and nearly 100 other members of Congress. The effort is expected to continue once the bill is reintroduced in the new Congress.

Source: theblackwallstreetimes.com, Staff, January 20, 2023





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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: Washington, DC, USA
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