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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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Buffalo Mass Shooting: U.S. government opposing motions to take death penalty off table for Payton Gendron

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Payton Gendron's attorneys argued he shouldn't be sentenced to death because of his age. The government disagreed.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The federal government has filed two responses opposing motions by Payton Gendron's attorneys to take the death penalty off the table in connection to the Tops mass shooting that happened on May 14, 2022.

The attorneys for Gendron, who was convicted of killing 10 people, argued he shouldn't be sentenced to death because of his age. 

The government disagreed and said he should be eligible.

They also opposed a request for an evidentiary hearing. A judge must now rule on the issue.

The federal trial is scheduled to begin next September.

Just last month, a gun bust connected to a federal prisoner a thousand miles away in Louisiana began with an investigation following the mass shooting at Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo. 

Source: WGRZ, Staff, July 19, 2024

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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: Buffalo, NY, USA
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