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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.

Group asks Gov. Cooper to commute all North Carolina death sentences before leaving office

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The North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty met Sunday afternoon at The Church on Morgan in downtown Raleigh. 

There, advocates called for Gov. Roy Cooper to commute all death sentences in North Carolina before he leaves office.

Rev. Sharon Risher lost her mother and 2 cousins in 2015 during the Charleston shooting, when 21-year-old Dylann Roof killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

“Family members who have been through horrific things, in the name of justice and revenge. I just want to be able to tell a different story,” Risher told CBS17.

Risher said that every time Roof appeals his sentence, she and her family have to relive their trauma all over again. She told CBS 17 that it would be easier for her if Roof would get a life sentence.

Former death row inmates also attended Sunday’s event. Henry Lee McCollum was on death row for 31 years before his murder conviction was overturned. McCollum was 19 when he, and his 15-year-old brother were accused of raping and murdering an 11-year-old.

McCollum and his brother were released decades later, after new DNA evidence linked another man to the crime. McCollum told CBS 17 that he believes he met more innocent men while on death row.

He also said that even those who are guilty, deserve a chance to change.

“People that commit crimes, they do change. I don’t believe they deserve capital punishment. I believe they deserve to be in prison for life,” McCollum said.

North Carolina has not executed anyone since 2006, since lawsuits put the practice on hold. Advocates say they will not rest until the death penalty is abolished completely in the state.

Source: WNCN news, Staff, August 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: North Carolina, USA
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