Death Penalty News

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.

President Biden used his clemency authority Monday to commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row to life without parole, in one of the most significant moves taken against capital punishment in recent presidential history. Biden did not commute the sentences of three men who were involved in cases of terrorism or hate-fueled mass murder, including Robert Bowers , convicted for the 2018 mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue; Dylann Roof , convicted for the 2015 mass shooting at a Black church in Charleston, S.C.; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev , convicted of the 2013 bombing at the Boston Marathon.

During the seven years I spent portraying President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet on The West Wing , I developed deep respect for the presidency and the monumental challenges its real-life officeholders confront every day. Recent news about President Biden’s exercise of his clemency power has drawn my memory to one of the most difficult “decisions” I made as President Bartlet—one that has stayed in my mind over the ensuing years—to deny clemency to a federal prisoner and allow his execution to proceed.

The Death of Ricky Ray Rector Ricky Ray Rector grew up in Conway, Arkansas, just an hour’s drive from Bill Clinton’s own hometown of Hot Springs. From the very earliest days of his life, Ricky was considered different and strange. He had few friends, and while other children were out running around, Ricky sat under a tree playing alone with sticks. Those who saw him said he was dreamy and detached, “as if he were locked into some private daze of withdrawal.”

Trump and DeSantis want to make it easier to execute people, and Biden could face a rush of clemency requests from federal death row. A few months ago, unnamed sources told Rolling Stone that former President Donald Trump was musing about ordering group executions, firing squads — and even guillotines — if elected president again in 2024. His spokesman denied some of the claims, but Trump did oversee more executions than any president in modern history, and he’s riffing at rallies about executing people for selling drugs, something the U.S. has never done . It is easy enough to dismiss these stories. Presidents appoint attorneys general, who oversee key decisions around federal capital punishment. Neither can unilaterally pick execution methods. But the news reports point to a new political dynamic: After a generation of decline, the death penalty seems poised to return to presidential campaign battles, and this could lead to more executions — and not just because of Trump.

For Pastor Dana Moore, the request is straightforward. He wants to hold hands and pray with a member of his congregation. But Moore’s otherwise simple desire is caught up in an epic legal struggle at the Supreme Court because of where and with whom he wants to do his work: A Texas execution chamber where the state intends to put convicted murderer John Ramirez to death. "I just want to be able to touch John," said Moore, who for years has made the four-hour drive once a month from his Second Baptist church in Corpus Christi to minister to Ramirez in prison. "If I'm standing right by him, why can't I just reach out?"  Ramirez’s case, which will be argued at the Supreme Court Nov. 1, comes as the justices have been expanding religious protections for all Americans, including death row inmates. It raises fundamental questions about what spiritual allowances states must make for those facing a death sentence. When a spiritual adviser is present at an execution, ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of people gathered Friday night outside the Supreme Court, singing in a candlelight vigil and weeping together as they mourned the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The large group of mourners packed the high court’s steps and the street across from the U.S. Capitol in a nighttime memorial. Dozens of people sat on the steps quietly reflecting on Ginsburg’s legacy. Scores of memorial candles flickered in the wind along the front steps of the court as people knelt to leave bouquets of flowers, small American flags and handwritten condolence messages for Ginsburg, who died Friday of metastatic pancreatic cancer at age 87 after 27 years on the court. Prayer candles with Ginsburg’s photo on them were also left on the steps. Several times, dozens in the crowd broke out into song, singing “Amazing Grace” and “This Land is Your Land” as others embraced one another and wiped tears from their eyes. At one point, the crowd broke into a thunderous applause — lastin...

With the nation’s attention focused on racial injustice, now is the time to confront the racial disparity on death row. The millions of Americans protesting to achieve racial justice in the wake of George Floyd’s brutal killing in Minneapolis have a lot on their plate. But there is one issue, in particular, that seems to be slipping through the cracks despite the increasingly broad agenda being pursued by the Black Lives Matter movement. Except for a few signs held by protesters , that agenda has included little about the racial injustice of America’s death penalty. Spurred on by the horrifying images of what Floyd’s brother called “a modern-day lynching in broad daylight,” protesters are rightly pushing to reform policing and make long-needed changes in legal doctrines like qualified immunity . But the legal executions of black men, though less visible than Floyd’s death, are as tainted by racism and a history of lynching as the extrajudicial deaths at hands of the po...

(YAHOO/KAKE) - The Independent’s Andrew Buncombe covered the execution of Timothy McVeigh* in Terre Haute, Indiana, in April 2001 in a report headlined ‘US executes its Public Enemy No1.' Here is what he wrote, according to Yahoo . Timothy McVeigh died with his eyes open. Strapped on to a plastic gurney, his body covered by a sheet, he turned his head to look at each of the witnesses sitting behind tinted glass, waiting to watch him die. He appeared to nod towards the room where his lawyers sat, apparently at ease. Then, without speaking, he lay back his shaven head, settled himself and stared straight towards the ceiling where a CCTV camera was beaming this most public of private executions 620 miles away to Oklahoma City. With all America seemingly paused, McVeigh, corralled behind razor wire and redbrick walls blinked slowly as lethal chemicals were injected into his body. Timothy McVeigh, icon of hate and anger, Public Enemy Number One, was executed in Terr...

ON THE DAY the Trump administration was supposed to kill Daniel Lewis Lee, Zann Carter sat in a cafe in downtown Terre Haute, Indiana. It was a dreary Monday morning but the space was warm; wreaths hung in the windows and Christmas music filled the room. The execution was the first in a series of five set between December and January, and it had originally been scheduled to take place between 7 and 8 a.m. A vigil had been planned outside the federal prison, just a few miles down the road, but the courts had put the killings on hold. That morning, December 9, activists from around the country gathered for breakfast at a nearby diner before driving home. For Carter, 67, Terre Haute is home, though she grew up in Florida, where her views about the death penalty were first formed. In 1979, when the state carried out its first execution in the “modern” death penalty era, Carter discussed capital punishment with her father, “the chief federal probation officer for the Southern Distr...