The Death Penalty Continues to be a Sick Tool for Many American Leaders
153 people were exonerated last year and were removed from death row. That's 153 INNOCENT people.
The Texas Supreme Court in October took the highly unusual step of ordering a stay in the scheduled execution of Robert Robertson, who was convicted in 2002 of killing his two-year-old daughter by shaking her violently. Robertson has steadfastly maintained his innocence in the case; his execution was to take place just 90 minutes after the Texas Supreme Court issued its stay. The stay is “highly unusual” because the court rarely gets in the way of executions and because the request for the stay came not from Robertson’s attorneys, but from a member of the Texas state legislature, where the move had bipartisan support. The US Supreme Court had earlier refused to intervene in the case. The execution would have been—and would be, if it’s eventually carried out—the first for a conviction for murder caused by “shaken baby syndrome.”
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