Death Penalty News

White supremacist Dylann Roof, who fatally shot nine Black members of a South Carolina church during a Bible study six years ago, and Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev might appear to be poster children for the death penalty. But not all death penalty cases are so clear-cut. Indeed, many are not. Often, defendants are convicted and sentenced to die in cases in which the evidence is flimsy or the cops or prosecutors have engaged in misconduct. Joe Biden knows this. Which is why he pledged as a candidate to end the federal death penalty. Now, as president, he should follow through. Biden has several options. He could commute the sentences of the 49 people on federal death row to life in prison, which would put a halt to executions until new cases make their way through the system. He could declare a moratorium on executions during his tenure in office, but that could end with the next president. He could order the U.S. Justice Department not to seek the death penalty in new cases,...

Donald Trump’s appalling disregard and contempt for democratic values and institutions was witnessed by the watching world last week. The storming of the Capitol by an armed and violent Trump-supporting mob , incited by the President, in an attempt to terrorise Congress and stop the peaceful transfer of power, was both extraordinary and disgraceful, and provoked revulsion and horror around the world. Five people died in the chaos that ensued, including a police officer. Trump refused to condemn those attacking the Capitol, and four hours after the violent insurrection posted a mixed message video asking supporters to go home, but also praised those very same supporters, repeating baseless accusations of election fraud. The incitement of violence and assault on democracy should come as little surprise from a President who, given the unprecedented number of Federal executions he has authorised in recent months, is in the midst of a killing spree . The violent legacy of Trump’s presidenc...

As Donald Trump’s presidency winds down, his administration is ratcheting up the pace of federal executions despite a surge of coronavirus cases in prisons As Donald Trump’s presidency winds down, his administration is ratcheting up the pace of federal executions despite a surge of coronavirus cases in prisons, announcing plans for 5 starting Thursday and concluding just days before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. If the 5 go off as planned, it will make 13 executions since July when the Republican administration resumed putting inmates to death after a 17-year hiatus and will cement Trump's legacy as the most prolific execution president in over 130 years. He'll leave office having executed about 1/4 of all federal death-row prisoners, despite waning support for capital punishment among both Democrats and Republicans. In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Attorney General William Barr defended the extension of executions into the post-election...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered at least two people executed, banned fishing at sea and locked down the capital, Pyongyang, as part of frantic efforts to guard against the coronavirus and its economic damage, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Friday. Kim's government also ordered diplomats overseas to refrain from any acts that could provoke the United States because it is worried about President-elect Joe Biden’s expected new approach toward North Korea, lawmakers told reporters after attending a private briefing by the National Intelligence Service. One of the lawmakers, Ha Tae-keung, quoted the NIS as saying Kim is displaying “excessive anger” and taking “irrational measures” over the pandemic and its economic impact. Ha said the NIS told lawmakers that North Korea executed a high-profile money changer in Pyongyang last month after holding the person responsible for a falling exchange rate. He quoted the NIS as saying that North Korea also executed a key offici...

Donald Trump is breaking “normal rules of civility” when it comes to the upcoming executions of three death row inmates, experts say. If Joe Biden gets his way, there will never again be the need for the federal execution chamber at Terre Haute, Indiana. The incoming President has made it clear that after his inauguration, he will eliminate the death penalty for federal death row inmates and encourage states still carrying out capital punishment to do the same. But Donald Trump is still in power. And he is the first outgoing president in 100 years to reject the “normal rules of civility” which dictate all executions cease after election day. It means he will add two more names to the list of Americans executed under his watch since he resumed death row executions after a 17-year hiatus in July. RELATED |  Execution rescheduled for Lisa Montgomery, only woman on federal death row RELATED | 3 new federal execution dates set It is a departing blow to Mr Biden from the Trump campaign ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President-elect Joe Biden is against the death penalty and will work to end its use, his spokesman said Saturday, as the Justice Department scheduled three more federal executions during before the Jan. 20 inauguration, including two shortly before he is set to take office. The Bureau of Prisons on Thursday carried out the eighth federal execution this year , after a 17-year hiatus, and it is likely to increase pressure on Biden decide whether his administration would continue to schedule executions once he is sworn in.  Advocacy groups have called on the Trump administration to pause all executions until Biden takes office. Biden "opposes the death penalty now and in the future," press secretary TJ Ducklo said. He did not say whether executions would be paused immediately once Biden takes office. Federal executions resumed this year despite the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 250,000 people and is raging inside the nation's prison system...

A group of Democratic lawmakers on Friday demanded the Trump administration halt federal executions—a practice it brought back after a 17-year hiatus—citing the threat of "irrevocable injustice." "While you will remain in office for a few more weeks, going forward with executions in the weeks before the new administration takes office would be a grave injustice," the lawmakers wrote to Attorney General William Barr. Penned by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), the letter points to July, when the administration "recklessly restarted" the state-sanctioned killings following Barr's 2019 directive to the Bureau of Prisons. "In less than three months, the administration executed seven people—more than the total number executed over the previous six decades," states letter. And, if Barr fails to heed the lawmakers' demand, the number will likely grow.  Orlando Ha...

Orlando Hall is scheduled to be killed at Terre Haute federal prison in Indiana on November 19 It's hard to believe, but it's only 30 years since the death penalty was abolished in Ireland. Before 1990, Irish judges were still sentencing prisoners to be hanged.  It may also come as a surprise to many that the Justice Minister who told the Dáil in June 1990 of how "pleased and honoured" he was to "finally remove the death penalty from our Statute Book" was none other than Fianna Fáil's Ray Burke.  I remember him visiting the Amnesty International office in Dublin at the time, where I was a volunteer heading-up their Anti-Death Penalty campaign.  By that time, I had already visited death row in Texas, and would later visit similar facilities in Alabama, high-security prisons in Virginia and lead an anti-death penalty campaign in Georgia during the 1996 Olympic Games. Ray Burke, a large besuited man, with over-sized squarish spectacles, was photographed hol...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Opponents of the death penalty in Ohio called on lawmakers Friday to enact a capital punishment ban during the lame duck legislative session lasting the next five weeks or so. The Senate legislation, one of several death penalty abolition bills over the years, was introduced in early March just as life turned upside down from the coronavirus pandemic. Though championed by Democrat Nickie Antonio in the GOP-controlled Senate, it has backing from Republicans concerned about the cost of capital punishment and the possibility of executing an innocent person. “It would be a compassionate, pragmatic and economically prudent step to abolish the death penalty,” Antonio, a Lakewood Democrat, said in a Friday news conference. “It’s a punishment that’s shown to be administered with disparities across economic and racial lines and it’s failed as a deterrent to violent crime.” Republican supporters of Antonio's legislation include Sens. Peggy Lehner of Kettering in suburba...

OAKLAND — What seemed like the most likely possibility is now official: The U.S. Department of Justice won’t make a decision on whether to seek the death penalty against two Bay Area men accused of murdering federal Ofc. Patrick Dave Underwood until after there is a new attorney general in place. In a Wednesday order, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers sided with the attorneys for both Steven Carrillo, 32, and Robert Alvin Justus, 30, who have opposed what they call a rush by federal prosecutors to decide whether the death penalty should be on the table for both defendants. The defense has argued that the pandemic has also put them at an unfair disadvantage, as it has inhibited them from meeting with their clients face-to-face and establishing mutual trust. “Given the lack of contact visits, the Court is not inclined to impose an arbitrary deadline for each defendant to submit his mitigation submission issue to the United States Attorney,” Rogers wrote in her ruling. The “mitig...