For these working stiffs, ambivalence rather than amore from the Pope
- Apr 18, 2021
The Supreme Court Jan. 14 cleared the path for the federal government to execute Corey Johnson after denying his two last-minute appeals.
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.
Drive south about two hours on Indiana highway from the Diocese of Lafayette headquarters, and you’ll wind up at the Terre Haute federal prison – the site of 10 federal executions since the government resumed the practice in July.
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.”
In a Nov. 12 Facebook post, Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille and longtime death penalty opponent, said: “We must stop the execution of Lisa Montgomery. Lisa was psychotic — unable to act rationally — when she committed a terrible crime. She desperately needed psychiatric care and instead she got a death sentence. “
Eight Catholic bishops serving Maryland dioceses urged President Donald Trump Dec. 22 to stop the planned federal execution of Dustin Higgs, a Maryland man on death row in Indiana.
A new report Dec. 16 by the Death Penalty Information Center said the use of capital punishment reached a historic low this year in the United States even with the return of federal executions by the Trump administration.