Biden Spared 37 Killers From Execution. Trump Ordered Up a Lifetime of Torment.
Even America’s harshest federal prison, where inmates spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, was too good, one official said; ‘I’ve got no problem with gruel’
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https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/dea...0?st=XKCweN&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“Among the last actions by former President
Joe Bidenbefore leaving the Oval Office was commuting the death sentences of 37 convicted murderers.
Hours after President Trump took over, he ordered the life sentences of these men be made, in effect, a living hell.
With that guidance, officials canceled plans to transfer most of the inmates to mainline prisons. Instead, Emil Bove III, the acting deputy attorney general at the time, ordered all but a handful requiring specialized medical treatment be housed in the U.S. Penitentiary at Florence, Colo., the harshest institution in the federal system.
Inmates at the Colorado prison—intended for the nation’s most violent—typically spend 23 hours a day alone in their cells. At a meeting in May with Attorney General Pam Bondi for families of loved ones killed by the 37 convicts, some officials said they wished conditions at the prison, known as ADX, were even worse.
… While the president’s authority to grant clemency for federal crimes is virtually unfettered, the power to impose vengeance via prison assignments isn’t clear.
There are two arguments: After juries found the 37 inmates deserving of death, shouldn’t they suffer the harshest treatment short of execution? Or, is it unjust to make their conditions worse than those of other murderers serving life without parole?…”
