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Legal lynchings soar under Trump
By Gloria Rubac posted on January 18, 2021
In an unprecedented spree of executions, Donald Trump has executed 13 people in the last six months of his presidency. As if in a frenzy to kill, Trump had three people put to death at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., just days before he exits the White House.
Protest against the execution of Dustin Higgs at Martin Luther King Jr. statue in Houston, Jan. 15.
WW PHOTO: Gloria Rubac
According to common sense, as well as various courts’ rulings including the U.S. Supreme Court, the last three people should never have been on death row or executed.
Ramsey Prison Unit: The terror of Texas
By Nanon M. Williams
Nanon Williams was arrested in 1992 at age 17 for capital murder and spent years on death row. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled people under 18 could not be sentenced to death. His sentence, along with 70 others, was commuted to life and he is still fighting to prove his innocence. He has earned two associate degrees, a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree; he was about to finish his second master’s, when the prison declared no one could earn two masters.
Nanon Williams with his mother, Lee Bolton, when she visited him on death row in 1998.
Scheduled federal executions infuriate activists
By Gloria Rubac posted on December 9, 2020
Members of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement protested Trump’s eighth execution since July at the Mickey Leland Federal Building in downtown Houston on November 19. In this photo are Trey Legall, Leonard Benton, Andre Ross, Gloria Rubac and Leonard Walker. Many passers-by honked in support and gave thumbs-up approval.
The outrage expressed by anti-death penalty activists was visceral as the news came out that Trump had authorized the federal government to use a firing squad, the electric chair, or a gas chamber for upcoming federal executions.
Ozell Brandley, the brother of Clarence Brandley, who spent 10 years on Texas death row before finally being found innocent, told WW: “A pardon for convicted administration members but death by firing squad for Blacks, Hispanics and minorities! Double standards in the criminal justice system and the White House!”