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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.

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

_____________________________________________________________________








"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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