Brandon Bernard to Be Executed Despite Five Jurors Urging Trump to Commute Sentence

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.newsweek.com/brandon-bernard-executed-jurors-urge-trump-commute-1552802

Brandon Bernard is set to become the latest federal inmate executed by President Donald Trump's administration—even though five of the surviving nine jurors who condemned him to death have changed their minds.

The 40-year-old is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana on Thursday.

Bernard, who is Black, was 18 when he was convicted over the 1999 kidnapping and murder of youth ministers Todd and Stacie Bagley at Fort Hood in Texas.

(snip)

In declarations shared on a website campaigning to save Bernard's life, five jurors urged Trump to commute Bernard's sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

The federal prosecutor who defended his execution verdict during the appeal also reportedly called for his life to be spared.

Abolish the death penalty. For more info about Brandon's case, go to https://www.helpsavebrandon.com/

[Mike 03]

1. Poignant Opinion Piece by his former prosecutor:

Op-ed: I helped put Brandon Bernard on federal death row. I now think he should live.

The news that Brandon Bernard was scheduled for execution on Dec. 10 hit me hard.

Brandon was convicted and sentenced to death in Waco 20 years ago; I was the federal prosecutor who defended that death verdict on appeal. I wrote briefs arguing that Brandon had a fair trial and his sentence was justified, even though he was only 18 at the time of the crime and did not shoot either victim.

I then argued to a panel of federal appellate judges to affirm his conviction and death sentence, which they did.

https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2020/11/18/op-ed-brandon-bernard-execution-prosecutor-says-he-should-live/6329685002/

[marble falls]

2. Abolish the death penalty, abolish mandatory life sentences, abolish prosecutions of ...

minors as adults.

[drray23]

3. well maybe these jurors should not have convicted him in the first place.

If five of them now say he should not get the death penalty there is enough doubt in their mind. Why not back then ?

[Steelrolled]

4. The trial was quite a while ago

People's recollections change over time, and they become influenced by information that would not have been allowed at the trial.