Word: executioner
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Acts of clemency have become a rarity in a political environment that rewards unflinching toughness. Only lame-duck Governors like Arkansas' Winthrop Rockefeller in 1971 and New Mexico's Toney Anaya in 1986 could afford the moral luxury of commuting the sentences of everyone on death row. Former California Governor...
Roemer was already familiar with such decisions. On the day he took office in 1988, there was an execution scheduled for that evening -- a grotesque welcome-to-power gift orchestrated by the outgoing Edwin Edwards, whom Roemer had defeated. "He knew that would affect me," the Governor recalls. He allowed...
Prejean's guilt was never in dispute. Early on the morning of July 2, 1977, Louisiana state trooper Donald Cleveland stopped Prejean and his brother Joseph on a routine traffic violation. As Cleveland began to frisk the argumentative Joseph, Dalton crept behind the car, pulled out a pistol and fired...
For Roemer, the decisive factor was Cleveland's badge. "The murder of a police officer in this state is a crime punishable by death," he said. "So on behalf of 780 state troopers, and thousands of police officers who put their lives on the line every day, the execution will...
To his credit, Roemer never fled from the responsibility for his decision. The Governor conducted a deathwatch of his own in the hours before the execution, waiting for phone calls from Prejean's lawyers at his desk in the executive mansion. "I'll be here," he said in advance. "Not...