A veteran <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/alabama">Alabama</a> news reporter was nearly barred from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/capital-punishment">witnessing an execution</a> Thursday because her skirt was too short and her heels were inappropriate, but was allowed to do her job after donning a pair of fisherman’s waders.
Ivana Hrynkiw, a reporter and managing producer with <a style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;" href="https://www.al.com/">AL.com</a>, arrived at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore to witness the execution of Joe Nathan James Jr., who killed his ex-girlfriend nearly three decades ago. But she was told by Alabama Department of Corrections Public Information Officer Kelly Betts she was in violation of the prison dress code, <a href="https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2022/07/joe-nathan-james-jr-set-to-be-executed-tonight-for-1994-killing-of-ex-girlfriend-in-alabama.html">according to AL.com</a>.
“I have worn this skirt to prior executions without incident, to work, professional events and more and I believe it is more than appropriate,” Hrynkiw said later on Twitter. At 5′10″ with my heels on, I am a tall and long-legged person.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Ivana Hrynkiw Shatara,
Yes it’s a free country 
Yes a criminal found guilty &amp; given death penalty 
But POV 
Just reflect some respect for the action of life ending 
With how you presented 
Just a fun Sunday brunch Happy go lucky day outfit W a Smile <a href="https://t.co/JqZtVkcPXO">pic.twitter.com/JqZtVkcPXO</a>
&mdash; elizabeth (@elizabe32184838) <a href="https://twitter.com/elizabe32184838/status/1553146155277721600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 29, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Hrynkiw said she had to borrow a pair of Columbia PFG fisherman’s waders from a local TV cameraman. Her open-toed heels were also deemed in violation, but she had tennis shoes in her car, she said.
“I put on the man’s pants and attached the suspenders underneath my shirt to stay up,” she said.
“Despite wearing a pair of waders from a man I have never met and casual tennis shoes, I continued to do my job,” Hrynkiw said. “This was an uncomfortable situation, and I felt embarrassed to have my body and my clothes questioned in front of a room of people I mostly had never met.”
A female reporter for the Associated Press also had her outfit scrutinized in the media center room, but Betts determined she passed muster.
“This was unacceptable, unequal treatment,” said Kelly Ann Scott, editor in chief and vice president of content for Alabama Media Group. “I’m proud to work with Ivana, who despite this treatment, continued to report the story with professionalism to our audiences in Alabama.
AL.com sent a formal complaint to ADOC, Gov. Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall on Friday.
The Associated Press also wrote Ivey late Friday afternoon asking her office to investigate and “ensure such behavior is not tolerated and does not occur again.
“Singling out female reporters for arbitrary clothing inspections is humiliating, discriminatory and simply unacceptable behavior toward professional journalists trying to cover one of the most serious events they are called upon to witness,” Julie Pace, Executive Editor The Associated Press, stated in the letter.
Betts provided an online link to a prison visitation dress code, which states that “all dresses, skirts, and pants shall extend below the knee (females only). Splits/Slits must be knee length or lower (females only).”
Betts released a statement Friday afternoon, after calling Hrynkiw and personally apologizing for the unexpected enforcement of the dress code.
“The wardens of each ADOC facility enforce this dress code based on each event and current safety conditions,” the statement said. “It will be the policy of ADOC in the future to remind all members of the media about this dress code before any media event taking place at an ADOC facility.
“We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this regulation may have caused. We hope by including it in future media advisories, we can avoid this kind of situation.”
The death by lethal injection of James, 50, faced a three-hour delay due to problems with the IV line. He was pronounced dead just after 9 p.m.

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Reporter’s Skirt Deemed Too Short To Witness Execution, So She Dons Hip Waders

Reporter's Skirt Deemed Too Short To Witness Execution, So She Dons Hip Waders

Alabama

Capital Punishment

Media

Murder

On Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland blocked federal executions, writing to his Department of Justice in a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/page/file/1408636/download.">memo</a> that the application of the death penalty had exhibited “arbitrariness in its application, disparate impact on people of color.”
Garland wrote:
<blockquote>The Department of Justice must ensure that everyone in the federal criminal justice system is not only afforded the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States, but is also treated fairly and humanely. That obligation has special force in capital cases. Serious concerns have been raised about the continued use of the death penalty across the country, including arbitrariness in its application, disparate impact on people of color, and the troubling number of exonerations in capital and other serious cases. Those weighty concerns deserve careful study and evaluation by lawmakers. In the meantime, the Department must take care to scrupulously maintain our commitment to fairness and humane treatment in the administration of existing federal laws governing capital sentences.</blockquote>
The DOJ noted in a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-merrick-b-garland-imposes-moratorium-federal-executions-orders-review">press release</a>:
<blockquote>In the last two years, the department made a series of changes to capital case policies and procedures and carried out the first federal executions in nearly two decades between July 2020 and January 2021. That included adopting a new protocol for administering lethal injections at the federal Bureau of Prisons, using the drug pentobarbital. Attorney General Garland’s memorandum directs the Deputy Attorney General to lead a multi-pronged review of these recent policy changes, including: </blockquote>
<ul>
<li>A review coordinated by the Office of Legal Policy of the Addendum to the Federal Execution Protocol, adopted in 2019, which will assess, among other things, the risk of pain and suffering associated with the use of pentobarbital.</li>
<li>A review coordinated by the Office of Legal Policy to consider changes to Justice Department regulations made in November 2020 that expanded the permissible methods of execution beyond lethal injection, and authorized the use of state facilities and personnel in federal executions.</li>
<li>A review of theJustice Manual’s capital case provisions, including the December 2020 and January 2021 changes to expedite execution of capital sentences.</li>
</ul>
The DOJ concluded, “No federal executions will be scheduled while the reviews are pending.”
In July 2019, then-Attorney General Bill Barr reinstated capital punishment, asserting, “Congress has expressly authorized the death penalty through legislation adopted by the people’s representatives in both houses of Congress and signed by the President. Under Administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought the death penalty against the worst criminals, including these five murderers, each of whom was convicted by a jury of his peers after a full and fair proceeding.  The Justice Department upholds the rule of law—and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.”
In the same announcement by the DOJ, they <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-government-resume-capital-punishment-after-nearly-two-decade-lapse">listed</a> the five individuals they had scheduled for execution and the horrific crimes they had committed.

President Biden And Attorney General Garland Deliver Remarks On Gun Crime Prevention

‘Disparate Impact On People Of Color’: Biden’s DOJ Halts Capital Punishment

Department of Justice

Joe Biden

Merrick Garland

Long before cancel culture insisted that everything is systemically racist, left-wing activists asserted that the death penalty is a racist institution. Capital punishment, they said, continued the legacy of Jim Crow by legalizing lynching. But is the allegation true?
Why do people claim the death penalty is racist?
Al Sharpton <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9wPL7FQTWY">encapsulated</a> the standard argument underpinning the claim that the death penalty is racist in his most recent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9wPL7FQTWY">episode</a> of MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation.” In a segment titled “The Death Penalty Belongs In The &#8216;Dustbin Of History,&#8217;” he said:
<blockquote>Like many other facets of the criminal justice system, the application of the death penalty is racially biased, anti-black, and rooted in white supremacy. Black defendants are more likely than any other race to be sentenced to death, but the race of the victim sometimes matters even more. According to reporting from the AP, since 1972 , “295 [b]lack defendants were executed for killing a white victim, but only 21 white defendants were executed for the killing of a [b]lack victim even though [b]lack people are disproportionately the victims of crime.” The modern practice of capital punishment grew out of America’s shameful history of lawless lynchings under Jim Crow. … That racist history lives through capital punishment to this day.</blockquote>
The AP story that Sharpton incorrectly quoted — the timeline referenced by <a href="https://apnews.com/article/united-states-lifestyle-race-and-ethnicity-discrimination-racial-injustice-ded1f517a0fd64bf1d55c448a06acccc">The Associated Press</a> started in 1977, not 1972 — also included allegations that capital punishment is racist, because “people of color have been overrepresented on death row — in 2019, 52% of the death row inmates were [b]lack, but that number has dropped to 42% this year, when approximately 60% of the population is white.”
In other words, the primary claim is that the death penalty has a <a href="https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/disparate-impact-discrimination.html">disparate impact</a> on minorities: The percentage of minorities on death row exceeds their share of the general U.S. population.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="The Death Penalty Belongs In The &#039;Dustbin Of History&#039; | MSNBC" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a9wPL7FQTWY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
What are the facts?
Disparate impact holds that the number of inmates on death row should reflect the overall U.S. population. But that assumes that police officers randomly scoop up American citizens and place them on death row. In reality, the death penalty doesn’t work that way.
Sharpton and The Associated Press made the fundamental mistake of comparing the demographics of murderers on death row with U.S. demographics, not with the demographics of murderers.
For the most part, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/capital_offense">capital offenses</a> involve <a href="https://deathpenalty.procon.org/federal-capital-offenses/">murder</a> (as well as treason and espionage), with certain <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3592">mitigating or aggravating factors</a>.
The FBI <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls">reported</a> that, in 2019, there were 16,245 murders — a nearly <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/murder">12% rise</a> since 2010. Of the 11,153 murderers whose race was known to be either white or black, 6,425 were black — or 57.6%. This Monday, the Justice Department <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/cp19st.pdf">released new data</a> regarding capital punishment. “Among prisoners under sentence of death at year-end 2019, about 56% were white and 41% were black,” <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/cp19st.pdf">according</a> to a Justice Department report released on Monday.
Furthermore, those on death row who are black seem to be less likely to actually get executed than white convicts. The DOJ report noted that black convicts made up 41.4% of death row inmates but only 31.8% of those executed in 2019. That fell to 29.4% of executions in its preliminary count for 2020. From the time executions resumed in 1977 until 2019, a total of 1,512 prisoners have been executed: 850 white, 515 black, 133 Hispanic, 14 listed as “other.” That is, black death row inmates accounted for 34% of all those executed.
It’s true that black people are disproportionately likely to be victims of crime, but those crimes are primarily committed by other black people — it is also the case that white people are more likely to be victimized by white perpetrators. Of the 2,906 black murder victims in 2019, 246 were killed by white offenders (or 8.5%), <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls">according</a> to the FBI. Meanwhile, 17.2% of murders involving white victims were committed by black perpetrators.
Is the death penalty a legacy of Jim Crow?
The death penalty far predates Jim Crow, going back at least to the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/history-of-the-death-penalty/">Code of Hammurabi</a> in the eighteenth century B.C. The laws of the ancient Hittites, Chinese, Athenians, and Romans all contained capital punishment, which continued into English common law and made its way to the 13 colonies before the United States formally existed.
At the time the U.S. Constitution was adopted, every state imposed the death penalty — including Maine and Massachusetts, which <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/us-census-1790/">had zero slaves</a> according to the 1790 census.
And, as noted, black criminals under sentence of death are less likely to be executed than white offenders guilty of capital crimes.
So, is the death penalty racist?
The death penalty is a punishment imposed on individuals who commit the most heinous of crimes, usually involving aggravated, premeditated murder against a vulnerable victim. It discriminates against behavior, not racial identity.

Death Chamber at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility

Fact Check: Is The Death Penalty Racist?

Death Penalty

Fact Check

On Monday, Virginia&#8217;s state Senate passed a bill that was already approved by the House of Delegates officially banning the death penalty in the southern state. The bill now waits to be signed into law by Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, which is expected.
The bill would join Virginia with 22 other states that have voted to end capital punishment. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virginia-death-penalty-repeal-governor-c98c16a996037a4d1e1d497787b7e6f1">The Associated Press</a> reported that Virginia has &#8220;executed more people in its long history than any other.&#8221;
Rachel Sutphin, whose father, Cpl. Eric Sutphin, was fatally shot in 2006 while working for the Montgomery County Sheriff&#8217;s Office, was one of 13 family members of murder victims who reportedly sent a letter to the General Assembly in Virginia, asking legislators to get rid of the death penalty.
“There&#8217;s a realization that it is time to end this outdated practice that tends to bring more harm to victims&#8217; family members than providing us any comfort or solace,” she said. &#8220;By voting for abolition, we are showing the way, that if Virginia — the state with the longest history and the most people executed — if we can do it, so can other states.&#8221;
Virginia has a new Democratic majority and is in complete control of the General Assembly for its second year. The majority party pushed for the ban of the death penalty, &#8220;arguing that the death penalty has been applied disproportionately to people of color, the mentally ill and the indigent.&#8221;
After the votes, Northam, House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, and Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw issued a joint <a href="https://www.governor.virginia.gov/newsroom/all-releases/2021/february/headline-892925-en.html">statement</a>, saying:
<blockquote>It is vital that our criminal justice system operates fairly and punishes people equitably. We all know the death penalty doesn’t do that. It is inequitable, ineffective, and inhumane.
Over Virginia’s long history, this Commonwealth has executed more people than any other state. And, like many other states, Virginia has come too close to executing an innocent person. It’s time we stop this machinery of death.
Thanks to the vote of lawmakers in both chambers, Virginia will join 22 other states that have ended use of the death penalty. This is an important step forward in ensuring that our criminal justice system is fair and equitable to all.</blockquote>
Republicans, however, had concerns about providing justice for the family members of victims.
Currently, only two men sit on Virginia&#8217;s death row. If the bill is signed into law, they will receive sentences of life in prison without parole instead of execution.
During the virtual House debate on Monday, Republican Del. Rob Bell spoke of the killings that put the two men on death row in detail, making the case against the repeal of capital punishment.
“We have five dead Virginians that this bill will make sure that their killers will not receive justice,” Bell said.
Michael Stone, executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, called the vote to abolish capital punishment a landmark moment in the state&#8217;s history.
“We hope that Virginia will set an example for other states from the old Confederacy to take this bold step toward the humane reform of our legal justice system,” Stone said.
According to the <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/sentencing-data/death-sentences-in-the-united-states-from-1977-by-state-and-by-year">Death Penalty Information Center</a>, death sentences in the United States have dropped dramatically over the last decade, with the number of sentences at 223 in 2000, 114 by 2010, and 18 by 2020. In the last 10 years, the sentencing fell from 114 to 18.

Welcome to Virginia, Virginia is For Lovers Sign – Virginia, USA

Virginia Set To Be First Southern State To Abolish Death Penalty

Texas

Virginia

On Monday, the newest member of the radical leftist “Squad” in the Democratic Party, Missouri Congresswoman-elect Cori Bush, published an <a href="https://time.com/5921335/joe-biden-death-penalty/">op-ed in Time</a> in which she called for the abolition of capital punishment, writing that the murderers who were executed were “legally tortured by a federal government and a broken criminal-legal system that shouldn’t have the power to force death on any human being.”
Bush, avoiding the grisly details of the crime committed, cited Brandon Bernard, who was executed on December 10 in what she called a “state-sanctioned murder.”
Bush assumed others shared her views, writing, “Like many of you, I waited to see if the Supreme Court of the United States or President Trump would intervene to prevent yet another needless tragedy. They did not. Because the cruelty of this system is the very point.”
Bush did not delineate what Bernard had done to precipitate the situation he was in. Here are details, according to the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/executions-scheduled-two-federal-inmates-convicted-heinous-murders">Department of Justice</a>:
<blockquote>Brandon Bernard and his accomplices brutally murdered two youth ministers, Todd and Stacie Bagley, on a military reservation in 1999. After Todd Bagley agreed to give a ride to several of Bernard’s accomplices, they pointed a gun at him, forced him and Stacie into the trunk of their car, and drove the couple around for hours while attempting to steal their money and pawn Stacie’s wedding ring. While locked in the trunk, the couple spoke with their abductors about God and pleaded for their lives.
The abductors eventually parked on the Fort Hood military reservation, where Bernard and another accomplice doused the car with lighter fluid as the couple, still locked in the trunk, sang and prayed. After Stacie said, “Jesus loves you,” and “Jesus, take care of us,” one of the accomplices shot both Todd and Stacie in the head—killing Todd and knocking Stacie unconscious. Bernard then lit the car on fire, killing Stacie through smoke inhalation. … One of his accomplices, Christopher Vialva, was executed for his role in the Bagleys’ murder on September 22, 2020.</blockquote>
Bush wrote, “For 17 years, federal executions were halted by previous administrations. For 17 years, not one life was taken. But for 17 years, families of those on death row fearfully waited for the moment that has come.”
Time <a href="https://time.com/5635787/executions-death-penalty-reaction-opponents/">noted in July 2019</a>:
<blockquote>The federal government set execution dates as early as December for five convicted child murderers, including a man who killed a couple and their 8-year-old daughter in 1996 by suffocating them with plastic bags and tying rocks to their bodies before dumping them into an Illinois bayou. In a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-government-resume-capital-punishment-after-nearly-two-decade-lapse">news release</a> Thursday, Attorney General William Barr called those five inmates the “worst criminals” and said “we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.”</blockquote>
“The fact of the matter is that these death sentences aren’t about justice,” Bush opined before eventually turning to race. “Black and brown people in communities like mine, when arrested are more likely to be convicted and receive harsher sentences than our white counterparts. A justice system that actually hands out justice isn’t as cruel, violent and racially biased as the one we’ve got.”
She concluded, “Ending the death penalty is about justice. It’s about mercy. It’s about putting a stop to this nation’s dark history of lynching and slavery. It’s about making it clear that our government should not have the power to end a life. We must build a fair criminal-legal system on a foundation of mercy, due process and equity. We must break the cycles of death, devastation and trauma that have broken Black and brown communities like mine. President-elect Biden must move beyond just opposing the death penalty. He must end it.”

Candidate For Missouri’s 1st District Cori Bush Holds Election Night Party

Newest Member Of ‘Squad’: No More Capital Punishment For Killers

Cori Bush