{"id":1905157,"date":"2023-03-26T16:57:14","date_gmt":"2023-03-26T20:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bidens-justice-dept-keeps-hard-line-in-death-row-cases\/"},"modified":"2023-03-26T16:58:35","modified_gmt":"2023-03-26T20:58:35","slug":"bidens-justice-dept-keeps-hard-line-in-death-row-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bidens-justice-dept-keeps-hard-line-in-death-row-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden\u2019s Justice Dept. keeps hard line in death row cases"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbidens-justice-dept-keeps-hard-line-in-death-row-cases%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1905157&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"RichTextArticleBody-body\">\n<div class=\"Enhancement\">\n<div class=\"Enhancement-item\">\n<div id=\"Brid_79699023\" class=\"brid\" style=\"width:16; height:9;\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\">                <meta itemprop=\"name\" content=\"Michigan Republican Party struggling under new leadership\">               <meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"Swept out of power at every level for the first time in nearly four decades, Michigan Republicans have found themselves struggling to regain their footing after the midterm election. Their controversial state party chair, Kristina Karamo, has not helped. Karamo\u2019s far-right views on everything from election fraud to human evolution have raised concerns among some Michigan Republicans that the state party will retreat further into the political wilderness. \">               <meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT1M25S\">               <meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2023-03-24 23:02:54\">               <meta itemprop=\"thumbnailURL\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn.brid.tv\/live\/partners\/19383\/snapshot\/1269039_th_641e2c4b4b3b3_1679699019.jpg\">               <meta itemprop=\"contentUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn.brid.tv\/live\/partners\/19383\/sd\/1269039.mp4\">              <\/div>\n<p>               <script type=\"text\/javascript\"> var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ \"div\": \"Brid_79699023\", \"obj\": {\"id\":\"27789\",\"width\":\"16\",\"height\":\"9\",\"video\":\"1269039\"} }); <\/script>               <script type=\"text\/javascript\" async src=\"https:\/\/services.brid.tv\/player\/build\/brid.min.js\"><\/script>              <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"ArticlePage-articleBody-firstLetter\">C<\/span>HICAGO (AP) \u2014 Rejon Taylor hoped the election of Joe Biden, the first U.S. president <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/biden-legal-proceedings-homicide-us-department-of-justice-merrick-garland-b7d8fae2f33ba2fcf1157b7c4dd5fd71\">to campaign on a pledge to end the death penalty,<\/a> would mean a more sympathetic look at his claims that racial bias and other trial errors landed him on federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana. <\/p>\n<p>But two years on, Justice Department attorneys under Biden are fighting the Black man\u2019s efforts to reverse his 2008 death sentence for killing a white restaurateur as hard as they did under Donald Trump, who oversaw <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/donald-trump-wildlife-coronavirus-pandemic-crime-terre-haute-28e44cc5c026dc16472751bbde0ead50\">13 executions in his presidency\u2019s final months<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery legal means they have available they\u2019re using to fight us,\u201d said the 38-year-old\u2019s lawyer, Kelley Henry. \u201cIt\u2019s business as usual.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Death penalty opponents expected Biden to act within weeks of taking office to fulfill his 2020 campaign promise to end capital punishment on the federal level and to work at ending it in states that still carry out executions. Instead, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/death-penalty-federal-executions-saipov-868f1175af273ecf925cc59eaf889278\">Biden has taken no steps<\/a> toward fulfilling that promise. <\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s not just inaction by Biden. An Associated Press review of dozens of legal filings shows Biden\u2019s Justice Department is fighting vigorously in courts to maintain the sentences of death row inmates, even after Attorney General Merrick Garland <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/page\/file\/1408636\/download\">temporarily paused executions<\/a>. Lawyers for some of the over 40 death row inmates say they\u2019ve seen no meaningful changes to the Justice Department\u2019s approach under Biden and Trump. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re fighting back as much as they ever have,\u201d said Ruth Friedman, head of the defender unit that oversees federal death row cases. \u201cIf you say my client has an intellectual disability, the government &#8230; says, \u2018No, he does not.\u2019 If you say \u2018I\u2019d like (new evidence),\u2019 they say, \u2018You aren\u2019t entitled to it.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Administration efforts to uphold death sentences for <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/supreme-court-rejects-dylann-roof-appeal-96a1e7f00f467cac8f2ca2a464b44f5e\">white supremacist Dylann Roof,<\/a> who killed nine Black church-goers, and <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/massachusetts-state-government-legal-proceedings-crime-boston-f32276fbfccb77fca2a08ae831d7f4df\">Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev<\/a> are better known. Lower-profile cases, like Taylor\u2019s, have drawn less scrutiny. <\/p>\n<p>The Justice Department confirmed that since Biden\u2019s inauguration it hasn\u2019t agreed with a single claim of racial bias or errors that could lead to the overturning of a federal death sentence. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a thorny political issue. While Americans increasingly oppose capital punishment, it is deeply entrenched. And as Biden eyes a 2024 run, it\u2019s unlikely he\u2019ll make capital punishment a signature issue given his silence on it as president. <\/p>\n<p>In announcing the 2021 moratorium, Garland noted concerns about how capital punishment disproportionately impacts people of color and the \u201carbitrariness\u201d \u2014 or lack of consistency \u2014 in its application. He hasn\u2019t authorized a single new death penalty case and has reversed decisions by previous administrations to seek it in 27 cases. <\/p>\n<p>Garland recently decided not to pursue death for <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/mexico-united-states-government-patrick-crusius-texas-el-paso-a2a924593883056af3782f33e3200fee\">Patrick Crusius,<\/a> who killed nearly two dozen people in a racist attack at a Texas Walmart. His lawyers have said he had \u201csevere, lifelong neurological and mental disabilities.\u201d He could still be sentenced to death under state charges. <\/p>\n<p>Garland also took the death penalty off the table for a man accused in 11 killings as part of a drug trafficking ring. <\/p>\n<p>Defense lawyers say that makes it all the more jarring that Garland\u2019s department is fighting to uphold some death sentences. In one case, Norris Holder was sentenced to death for a two-man bank robbery during which a security guard died, even though prosecutors said Holder may not have fired the fatal shot. <\/p>\n<div id=\"dsk-banner-ad-g\"><\/div>\n<p>Prosecutors decide before trial whether or not to seek the death penalty, and current death row inmates were all tried under previous administrations. Prosecutors have less leeway after a jury\u2019s verdict than before trial. <\/p>\n<p>Court challenges after trials are also often not about whether it was appropriate to pursue the death penalty, but whether there were legal or procedural problems at trial that make the sentence invalid. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a very different analysis when a conviction has been entered, a jury has spoken,\u201d said Nathan Williams, a former Justice Department lawyer who prosecuted Roof. \u201cThere has to be a respect for the appellate process and the legal approaches that can be taken.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>A Justice Department spokesman said prosecutors \u201chave an obligation to enforce the law, including by defending lawfully obtained jury verdicts on appeal.\u201d The department is working to ensure \u201cfair and even-handed administration of the law in capital-eligible cases,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>Inmate lawyers dispute that prosecutors have no choice but to dig in their heels, saying multiple mechanisms have always existed for them to fix past errors. <\/p>\n<p>Justice officials announced this month that they wouldn\u2019t pursue death in the resentencing of <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/death-penalty-dru-sjodin-alfonso-rodriguez-jr-ca6d8a688408455839888a33670feaa7\">Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.,<\/a> convicted of killing North Dakota student Dru Sjodin. But that only happened after a judge vacated the original death sentence. <\/p>\n<p>Notably in 2021, the department agreed with lawyers for Wesley Coonce, sentenced to death for killing a fellow inmate in a mental health unit, that lower courts should look again at intellectual disability questions in his case. But the Supreme Court disagreed, declining to hear his case or remand it to lower courts. <\/p>\n<p>Seven federal defendants are still facing possible death sentences. <\/p>\n<p>The <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/nyc-bike-path-attack-death-penalty-jury-64cb1dd889e6eefbc3fc23add9b4f32b\">first federal death penalty case tried under Biden<\/a> ended this month. The jury was divided, meaning the life of Sayfullo Saipov, who killed eight people in a terrorist attack on a New York bike path, will be spared. Trump made the decision to seek death and Garland allowed the case to move forward. <\/p>\n<p>Garland\u2019s criteria for letting some capital cases proceed isn\u2019t clear, though the department often consults victims\u2019 families. Some feel strongly that suspected or convicted killers should face death. <\/p>\n<p>Inmate attorneys have asked for all capital cases to get a fresh look. Garland has appeared to take one step in that direction. <\/p>\n<p>The department this year restored written guidance emphasizing that staff can be proactive in fixing egregious errors in capital cases, though none has invoked that option. Garland also re-set processes in which capital defendants can, in certain circumstances, ask the department to consent to their bids for relief. <\/p>\n<p>Taylor was charged with killing restaurant owner Guy Luck in 2003. His lawyers say the 18 year old \u201cdischarged his gun in a panic\u201d as Luck tried to grab a gun inside a van in Tennessee. <\/p>\n<p>The prosecution described Taylor to his almost entirely white jury as a \u201cwolf\u201d whom they had an \u201cobligation\u201d to kill. An alternate later said some jurors were determined to get Taylor, recalling: \u201cIt was like, here\u2019s this little Black boy. Let\u2019s send him to the chair.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>An appeals court rejected Taylor\u2019s bias claims in 2016, though a dissenting judge said courts must be especially diligent to guard against bias when a defendant is Black and the victim white. She also said Taylor didn\u2019t seem to be among the worst of the worst, for whom death sentences are reserved. <\/p>\n<p>Taylor revived the bias claims, though the department hasn\u2019t directly addressed them. It has rejected many of his separate claims. <\/p>\n<p>As the 2024 election looms \u2014 and with the chance of someone even less sympathetic to their claims entering the Oval Office \u2014 death row inmates know the clock is ticking. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrump ran out of time during his killing spree,\u201d Taylor told the AP via a prison email system. If elected again, \u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019d waste any time in continuing where he\u2019d left off.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Rejon Taylor hoped the election of Joe Biden, the first U.S. president to campaign on a pledge to end the death penalty, would mean a more sympathetic look at his claims that racial bias and other trial errors landed him on federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana. But two years on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1905158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[3706,6499,4098,5414,4901,8838],"class_list":["post-1905157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington-examiner","tag-bidens","tag-death","tag-dept","tag-hard","tag-justice","tag-row"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1905157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1905158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1905157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1905157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1905157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}