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As clock ticks toward another Trump presidency, federal death row prisoners appeal for clemency

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President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office is putting a spotlight on the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, which houses federal death row. In Bloomington, a small community of death row spiritual advisors is struggling to support the prisoners to whom they minister.  Ross Martinie Eiler is a Mennonite, Episcopal lay minister and member of the Catholic Worker movement, which assists the homeless. And for the past three years, he’s served as a spiritual advisor for a man on federal death row.
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Japan | Man Appeals Death Penalty in Kyoto Anime Studio Arson

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A Japanese man has appealed a court ruling handed down Thursday that said he was mentally competent when in 2019 he set a fire at an animation studio in Kyoto that killed 36 people.

The Japanese court went on to sentence Aoba to death for the arson attack.

Shinji Aoba’s lawyers appealed the ruling Friday, a Kyoto District Court spokesman told Agence France-Presse. 

They had argued at trial that Aoba was not guilty because of a mental disorder, which the judge rejected.

Aoba, now 45 years old, admitted setting the fire at the anime studio Kyoto Animation after spreading gasoline on the ground floor.


In addition to those killed, the attack also injured 32 people.

Aoba believed the studio had stolen ideas from a contest entry he submitted. 

The company denied those claims. He was also badly burned in the fire and appeared in court in a wheelchair.

Source: voanews.com, Staff, January 26, 2024

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