USA: Bush and Gonzales want still more death penalties

This ia a musical video from the USA by Op-Critical. Protest statement against the Death Penalty. Just how much blood is on George W. Bush’s hands? Winner of Indie Music Video Festival.

From British daily The Independent:

Bush’s lethal legacy: more executions

The US already kills more of its prisoners than almost any other country. Now the White House plans to cut the right of appeal of death row inmates…

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles

Published: 15 August 2007

The Bush administration is preparing to speed up the executions of criminals who are on death row across the United States, in effect, cutting out several layers of appeals in the federal courts so that prisoners can be “fast-tracked” to their deaths.

With less than 18 months to go to secure a presidential legacy, President Bush has turned to an issue he has specialised in since approving a record number of executions while Governor of Texas.

The US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales – Mr Bush’s top legal adviser during the spree of executions in Texas in the 1990s – is putting finishing touches to regulations, inspired by recent anti-terrorism legislation, that would allow states to turn to the Justice Department, instead of the federal courts, as a key arbiter in deciding whether prisoners live or die.

The US is already among the top six countries worldwide in terms of the numbers of its own citizens that it puts to death. Fifty-two Americans were executed last year and thousands await their fate on death row.

See also here.

US Supreme Court upholds lethal injection, opening way to resumed executions: here. And here.

Executions by lethal injection in Texas and Virginia: here.

Bush approves execution of army prisoner: here.