Death Penalty – Transfiguration For Life

USA | South Carolina push to resume executions with electric chair

on February 25, 2021

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South Carolina is dusting off its electric chair and trying to restart executions in the state after going nearly 10 years without putting an inmate to death.A House Committee voted 14-7 on Tuesday to make electrocution the default for an execution. The bill now goes to the House floor while a similar bill is on the Senate floor.Right now, inmates can choose between electrocution and the current

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USA | Biden is pressed to end federal death penalty

on February 17, 2021

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On a campaign webpage on criminal justice reform, Biden did pledge “to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example.”CHICAGO (AP) — Joe Biden, the first sitting U.S. president to openly oppose the death penalty, has discussed the possibility of instructing the Department of Justice to stop scheduling new

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At the funeral of man executed by U.S., family prays it is the last of its kind

on February 4, 2021

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POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. (Reuters) – By the grave dug for Dustin Higgs, the 13th and final prisoner executed by former President Donald Trump’s administration, a woman began to wail, doubling over and stomping her right foot as his coffin was lowered into the frozen ground.“They killed my brother!” Alexa Cave said, heaving with tears. Relatives circled around to steady her, and she said it again, loud

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USA | Virginia may be first in south to abolish death penalty and abandon ‘legalized lynching’

on February 4, 2021

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State is expected to vote on a bill to end 413-year history of capital punishment, a practice rooted in slavery and racial lynchingEarl Washington came within nine days of being put to death by the state of Virginia. The date was set, the arrangements finalized. He would be taken to the death chamber, strapped into an electric chair, then jolted with 2,200 volts that would have paralysed his

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USA | Poll: Big majority in Ohio support getting rid of the death penalty

on February 4, 2021

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Almost 60 % of Ohioans support replacing the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to a poll conducted late last year and released Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and the advocacy group Ohioans to Stop Executions.In addition, a majority supports a full repeal, including 69 % of Democrats and 53 % of Republicans, according to the

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USA | Bill to eliminate Virginia death penalty advances; cost savings debated

on January 28, 2021

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Eliminating the death penalty in Virginia would cost the commonwealth about $77,000 to house and feed two current death row inmates, but free up almost $4 million yearly by eliminating the state’s Capital Defender Service, which represents defendants in cases eligible for the death penalty.Virginia Senate Bill 1165 was approved Tuesday by the Finance and Appropriations Committee by a vote of 12-4

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USA | ‘They deserve death’: Iowa lawmakers propose reinstating death penalty for people who rape and murder children

on January 28, 2021

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Iowa outlawed the death penalty in 1965.Iowa lawmakers proposed a bill that would allow death sentences for people convicted of murdering a child after raping them.It’s been almost 6 decades since Iowa last executed a state prisoner, but a group of Republican senators feels one crime in particular merits a death sentence."I am someone that’s not a big death penalty advocate, but, you know, I just

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USA | Former South Dakota Prosecutor and Judge Introduces Bill to Limit the State’s Death Penalty

on January 28, 2021

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A South Dakota state senator who previously served as a prosecutor and a state court judge has introduced a bill to limit the breadth of the state’s death penalty statute. Senate Bill 98, introduced by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arthur Rusch (R – Clay,) on January 25, 2021, would restrict capital punishment to a single aggravating circumstance, premeditated murders in which a defendant

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Members of Congress Push for End to the Federal Death Penalty

on January 27, 2021

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White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday that President Biden was “opposed” to the federal death penalty, but offered no details on a possible stoppage of its use.

This article was originally published in The Daily Register. Click here to read the Original Article

Tennessee | Pervis Payne death penalty case: DNA of unknown male discovered, lawyer says

on January 24, 2021

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With an execution date set for December, the Payne Family discusses Pervis and their hopes for overturning his sentence now hinging on new DNA evidence Memphis Commercial AppealThe DNA of an unknown male was discovered in new analysis of evidence from the Pervis Payne death penalty case, an attorney said in court Tuesday.“There is male DNA on the handle (of the knife) that is unidentified as of

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USA | Democratic Legislators Introduce Death Penalty Repeal Bills, Urge President Biden to Commute Federal Death Sentences

on January 23, 2021

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Democratic members of the U.S. House and Senate have called on incoming President Joe Biden to take quick action on his campaign pledge to end the federal death penalty. Legislators introduced three bills to abolish the federal death penalty and urged the President to issue executive orders to halt federal executions and commute the death sentences of those on federal death row.Citing the more

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USA | Federal Government Executes Corey Johnson, Who was Likely Intellectually Disabled, Without Any Judicial Review of His Eligibility for the Death Penalty

on January 17, 2021

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For the second time in less than five weeks, the federal government has executed a death-row prisoner who likely was intellectually disabled, without affording him judicial review to determine his eligibility for the death penalty. Corey Johnson (pictured) was pronounced dead from lethal injection at 11:34 p.m. on January 14, 2021, the 12th federal prisoner executed in six months and the fifth in

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Virginia lawmakers introduce bill to abolish death penalty

on January 15, 2021

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The state has executed 113 people since 1976.Virginia state lawmakers introduced legislation Wednesday that would abolish the state’s death penalty.Virginia House of Delegates member Mike Mullin and state Sen. Scott Surovell introduced bills to their respective houses that would abolish the death penalty and convert existing capital sentences to sentences of life in prison without the possibility

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USA | ProPublica Investigation Reveals Irregularities in Federal Executions

on January 13, 2021

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The federal government’s historically aberrant execution spree has been fraught with irregularities and “has trampled over an array of barriers, both legal and practical,” according to an investigative report by the non-profit news organization, ProPublica.In a December 23, 2020 news story by reporter Isaac Arnsdorf, based upon an analysis of court records, ProPublica details a pattern of

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Bishops call for an end to the federal death penalty

on January 13, 2021

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WASHINGTON (CNS) — A joint statement from two U.S. bishops who head different committees of the U.S. bishops called for an end to the federal use of the death penalty as “long past time.”

“We renew our constant call to President (Donald) Trump and Acting Attorney General (Jeffrey) Rosen: Stop these executions,” said the Jan. 11 statement from Archbishops Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

“Following a year where the federal government, for the first time, executed more people than all 50 states combined, there are three more federal executions scheduled this week,” the two archbishops said.

UPDATE: Lisa Montgomery put to death after Supreme Court reversal

on January 13, 2021

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WASHINGTON (CNS) — After a flurry of court decisions, the Supreme Court reversed a pair of rulings from federal appeals courts that had put death-row inmate Lisa Montgomery’s execution on hold, and it denied two other last-minute requests to postpone the execution.

Montgomery was put to death by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, soon after the court’s decision at 1:31 a.m. (EST). She was the first woman to be put to death in federal prison since 1953.

After the court’s decision, Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille and longtime death penalty opponent, tweeted: “In yet another after-midnight ruling, the U.S.

USA | Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow execution of Lisa Montgomery

on January 13, 2021

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The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court Tuesday to clear the way for the execution of Lisa Montgomery, who is scheduled to die today by lethal injection — the first woman to face the federal death penalty in nearly seven decades. The request from the Justice Department came after a divided federal appeals court delayed her execution until after President Trump leaves office next week.

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Amid Scheduled Executions, Bills Introduced to End Federal Use of Death Penalty

on January 13, 2021

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The effort comes after Rep. Adriano Espillat, D-N.Y., a Dominican-American and Catholic, introduced H.R. 97 Jan. 4, “To abolish the death penalty under Federal law.”

This article was originally published in The Daily Register. Click here to read the Original Article

Opinion: Lisa Montgomery’s federal execution may be death knell for death penalty

on January 6, 2021

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All year long in her cell in Texas, Lisa Montgomery crochets angels and Christmas tree ornaments and elaborate nativity scenes overrun with more angels. On Christmas Eve, her attorneys called her to say that a judge in Washington, D.C., had ruled that a new execution date for her couldn’t even be scheduled until Jan. 1 at the earliest.Then, she’d have to be given the legally required 20 days

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The decline and fall of the American death penalty

on January 5, 2021

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The number of death sentences and executions in the US has fallen off a cliff since the 1990s. 2020 continued that trend.Fewer people were executed in 2020 than in any year for nearly three decades, and fewer people were sentenced to die than at any point since the Supreme Court created the modern legal framework governing the death penalty in 1976. Those are two of the striking findings in the

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Virginia advocates set to try again on death penalty repeal

on January 5, 2021

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Death penalty opponents hope they have enough bipartisan support from lawmakers to get a bill passed next year ending executions in Virginia, a state that has put more people to death in its long history than any other.Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, is again sponsoring a measure that would abolish the death penalty, and Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, said he will sign on this year as a

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UN Condemns Iran’s Execution Of Juvenile Offender, The Fourth This Year

on January 5, 2021

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The United Nations has condemned Iran for executing a man convicted of murder when he was 16 years old, saying the punishment violated international law.The UN human rights office in Geneva said Mohammad Hassan Rezaiee was executed on December 31.He was the fourth juvenile offender put to death in Iran this year, the office said.“The execution of child offenders is categorically prohibited under

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Kazakhstan Abolishes Death Penalty

on January 5, 2021

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NUR-SULTAN, KAZAKHSTAN – Kazakhstan abolished the death penalty, making permanent a nearly two-decade freeze on capital punishment in the authoritarian Central Asian country, a notice on the presidential website said Saturday.RELATED | Parliament of Kazakhstan starts abolition of capital punishmentThe notice said President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev had signed off on parliamentary ratification of the

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Woman Who Strangled Pregnant Mom to Death and Cut Out Her Baby Will be Executed

on January 5, 2021

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A federal appeals court reinstated the execution date for the only woman on death row in the U.S., reversing a lower court’s decision.

Federal death row inmate Lisa Montgomery’s execution will take place on Jan. 12, a panel of three judges at the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a decision Friday evening. A lower court judge had vacated that execution date on Dec. 24 after Montgomery’s lawyers said they tested positive for coronavirus on their way to visit her in prison, CNN reported.

U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss unlawfully vacated Montgomery’s execution date, the appellate judges ruled, according to The Associated Press.

Indonesia | President Jokowi signs regulation validating chemical castration for pedophiles

on January 5, 2021

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President Joko Widodo has signed a government regulation (PP) giving teeth to a controversial law on punishing convicted child molesters with chemical castration.The PP was signed on Dec. 7 but a copy of the document only circulated widely yesterday. Titled PP No. 70/2020 on chemical castration, attachment of electronic tracking devices, rehabilitation, and disclosure of the identities of

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