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Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

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A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.

Nevada death row inmate commits suicide in Ely State Prison

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LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A man who was sentenced to death for killing a 15-year-old girl died by suicide inside a Nevada state prison, according to the Clark County Coroner’s office.

Staff at Ely State Prison found Norman Belcher, 49, unresponsive last Thursday, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned. 

The cause of death was hanging, according to the Coroner’s office.

A Clark County jury sentenced Belcher to death in 2016. Belcher shot Alexus Postorino on Dec. 2, 2010, during a drug-related robbery. The teen was sleeping in her father’s bed while he was out with a friend, according to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officials.

The Clark County District Attorney’s office said Belcher plotted to rob the home, planning to kill anyone who would be able to identify him.

Belcher believed Postorino’s father owed him money from a drug deal. Belcher also shot the father’s roommate twice in the side, according to LVMPD officials. 

Belcher and the teen girl’s father had known each other since grade school.

8 News Now Investigators reached out to Postorino’s father, who declined to comment.

Ely State Prison is located in northern Nevada. The maximum-security facility is approximately a four-hour drive from Las Vegas.

There are 51 inmates inside Nevada prisons who were sentenced to death, according to the Nevada Department of Corrections. 

Most of the inmates are housed at Ely State Prison. 

No executions are scheduled at this time, the department said. The last execution in Nevada was in 2006.

Source: 8newsnow.com, Vanessa Murphy, June 4, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________








"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: Nevada, USA
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