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    Sept. 11 Trial Plea Negotiations Still Underway at Guantánamo Bay

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    The lead prosecutor briefed the judge on the talks in an effort to fend off a claim that members of Congress had unlawfully meddled in the negotiations.Prosecutors and defense lawyers are still negotiating toward a plea agreement for the men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks despite the Biden administration’s refusal to endorse certain proposed conditions, the lead prosecutor said in court on Wednesday at Guantánamo Bay.“This is all whirling around us,” said Clayton G. Trivett Jr., the prosecutor, discussing key details of the negotiations in open court for the first time. He added that “around the edges we have agreed to do things” and that “the positions that we took at the time are still available.”In mostly secret negotiations in 2022 and 2023, prosecutors offered to drop the death penalty from the case in exchange for detailed admissions by the accused architect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and four other men who are charged as his accomplices in the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people. Since then, one of the five men has been ruled not mentally competent to stand trial.The occasion of the briefing was a legal filing by lawyers for Ammar al-Baluchi, one of the defendants and Mr. Mohammed’s nephew, asking the judge to dismiss the case or at least the possibility of a death penalty because of real or apparent political interference by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, and other members of Congress last summer.In August 2023, those members of Congress began urging relatives of Sept. 11 victims on social media to pressure President Biden to derail any deal that would prevent capital punishment.At the time, the White House was deciding whether to endorse certain conditions sought through the talks, most related to addressing the physical and psychological damage the men had from torture in their early years of incommunicado custody by the C.I.A.On Sept. 6, 2023, the White House declined to get involved.Rita J. Radostitz, a lawyer for Mr. Baluchi, said that Mr. Cruz then took “a victory lap.”“The Biden administration was prepared to give them a plea deal,” Mr. Cruz posted on social media. He went on, using the acronym for the Defense Department, “After I pressed the DoD, they reversed course & rejected the plea deal. Big win for justice.”But both defense and prosecution lawyers told the judge on Wednesday that the White House position did not derail the talks.When Mr. Cruz got involved, defense lawyers were “working with the prosecution streamlining all the litigation to present, in an open setting, a full examination of the events of 9/11 and answer all the victim family members’ questions about what happened,” said Gary D. Sowards, Mr. Mohammed’s lawyer.Any deal would take the death penalty off the table and require a mini-trial and airing of the facts of the attack, he said.The defendants want guarantees of trauma care for head injuries, gastrointestinal damage and mental illnesses blamed on their C.I.A. detention; to continue to eat and pray together communally, rather than be held in solitary confinement; and to get better communication with their families rather than recorded video calls. But Mr. Trivett said those demands, called “policy principles,” require infrastructure, funding and executive branch approval. So he forwarded them to the general counsel of the Defense Department while his team secretly negotiated how a plea agreement would play out in the Guantánamo court.He said Congress had legitimate interests in that aspect of the negotiations, because some assurances would require funding — and Congress decides the Pentagon’s budget.Mr. Sowards said a negotiated settlement at Guantánamo would not resemble one in federal court, where a defendant comes to plead guilty and is sentenced without a trial.These negotiations between prosecution and defense lawyers were working toward a lengthy, open court process that would involve a detailed plea, presentation of the crime, testimony by victims and possibly an opportunity for family members to have the defendants answer their questions, Mr. Sowards said.In military commissions, that process can last months.Mr. Trivett told the judge that about 20,000 people can be counted as relatives of the victims of the attacks, and there was no agreement “on what is justice in this case, what is an appropriate punishment.” He made the presentation on a rare week when only one relative was watching in the spectators’ gallery.“I’m glad to hear they’re still talking, and that there’s an openness to bringing a plausible resolution that will give some sort of finality to everyone involved,” said Colleen Kelly, whose brother Bill was killed at the World Trade Center.By “everyone,” she said, she meant the Sept. 11 families, the prosecution and the defense lawyers, some who have been shouldering this responsibility for two decades. Ms. Kelly, a founder of the Sept. 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows movement, came to Guantánamo on Saturday to watch a week of hearings as a court-approved “nongovernmental observer.”This is the third week of a five-week pretrial hearing session, and as it happened, the prosecutors sponsored no family members as guest observers.Last month, when family members were watching the proceedings, another prosecutor told the judge that, regardless of the outcome of their trial, Mr. Mohammed and the others could be held forever in a form of preventive detention.In disclosing the details of the continuing talks, Mr. Trivett said there had been no unlawful influence on his team. “Nobody has threatened me,” he said, adding that he was under no pressure “not to negotiate consistent with what we consider to be a just result.”On Wednesday, Darin Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Cruz, said the senator would continue his efforts.“During his time in the Senate, Senator Cruz has led efforts to combat terrorists, from the Iran-controlled Houthis to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to Hamas, in addition to advocating against plea deals for terrorists being charged for plotting and planning 9/11. He will continue to do so,” Mr. Miller said. More

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      Was Alabama’s Nitrogen Execution ‘Textbook’ or Botched? Sides Are Divided.

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      Alabama officials said the nation’s first nitrogen gas execution was a model for other states. Critics called it appalling and far from what the state promised.A day after Alabama became the first state to execute a prisoner with nitrogen gas, officials vowed on Friday to continue using the method in executions despite witnesses’ accounts that the prisoner writhed on the gurney for at least two minutes.Two very different accounts of the execution emerged from the state’s death chamber in Atmore, Ala., where the state executed Kenneth Smith, 58, on Thursday night.The state’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, called it a “textbook” execution that had made nitrogen hypoxia, as the process is known, a “proven” method that other states could emulate.“Alabama has done it, and now so can you,” Mr. Marshall said, addressing his counterparts across the country. “And we stand ready to assist you in implementing this method in your states.”Meanwhile, Mr. Smith’s spiritual adviser and reporters who also witnessed the execution described an intense reaction in which Mr. Smith violently shook and writhed as the gas was administered, began breathing heavily and, finally, stopped moving.The descriptions were at odds with what the state had promised in court papers: that the untested method of using nitrogen gas through a face mask would “rapidly lower the oxygen level in the mask, ensuring unconsciousness in seconds.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      What to Know About the Execution of Kenneth Smith in Alabama

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      Kenneth Eugene Smith was put to death by nitrogen gas on Thursday night, the first time the method was used in capital punishment in the U.S.Alabama carried out on Thursday the first execution using nitrogen gas in the United States, an untested method that was the subject of debate before it was used. The inmate, Kenneth Smith, was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m. Central time at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala., after the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal to stay the execution.Here are a few things to know about the case.Who was Kenneth Smith, and what was his crime?Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was one of three men convicted in the stabbing murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, 45, whose husband, a pastor, had recruited them to kill her in March 1988 in Colbert County, Ala.According to court documents, Ms. Sennett, a mother of two, was stabbed 10 times in the attack by Mr. Smith and another man. Charles Sennett Sr., Ms. Sennett’s husband, had recruited a man to handle her killing, who in turn recruited Mr. Smith and another man.Mr. Sennett arranged the murder in part to collect on an insurance policy that he had taken out on his wife, according to court records. He had promised the men $1,000 each for the killing.What were the circumstances around his death sentence?Mr. Smith was convicted in 1996. At his sentencing, 11 out of 12 jurors voted to spare his life and to sentence him to life in prison, but the judge in the case, N. Pride Tompkins, decided to overrule their decision and condemned him to death. In 2017, Alabama stopped allowing judges to overrule death penalty juries in such a way, and such rulings are no longer allowed anywhere in the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Read the Supreme Court’s Decision Allowing an Alabama Execution to Proceed

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      SMITH v. HAMM

      SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

      likelihood of success on the merits of his claim challenging Alabama’s undeterred implementation of its heavily redacted, 5-month-old protocol. The equities here, as in nearly all capital cases where the prisoner has shown a reasonable probability of success on the merits, favor Smith. See Bucklew, 587 U. S., at (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting). While I would grant the petition for a writ of certiorari and summarily reverse the Eleventh Circuit’s order affirming the denial of Smith’s preliminary-injunction motion, at a minimum, I would grant Smith’s request for a stay of execution.

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      Having failed to kill Smith on its first attempt, Alabama has selected him as its “guinea pig” to test a method of execution never attempted before. Barber, 600 U. S., at The world is watching.2 This Court yet again permits Alabama to “experiment . . . with a human life,” while depriving Smith of “meaningful discovery” on meritorious constitutional claims. Id., at _______. This time around, Alabama has adopted a new protocol concerning a never-before-used method of execution. Consistent with Alabama’s “familiar veil of secrecy over its capital punishment procedures,” it has released only a “heavily redacted” version of that protocol. 2024 WL 116303, *3. Smith should be allowed to complete discovery and litigate the merits of his claims challenging this new protocol in the ordinary course. That information is important not only to Smith, who has an extra reason to fear the gurney, but to anyone the State seeks

      2 See, e.g., US: Alarm Over Imminent Execution in Alabama, United Nations (Jan. 16, 2024), https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-briefing-notes/ 2024/01/us-alarm-over-imminent-execution-alabama; United States: UN Experts Alarmed at Prospect of First-Ever Untested Execution by Nitrogen Hypoxia in Alabama, United Nations (Jan. 3, 2024), https://www. ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/01/united-states-un-experts-alarmed

      prospect-first-ever-untested-execution. More

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      Supreme Court Declines to Stop Nitrogen Execution in Alabama

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      Both the Supreme Court and a federal appeals court denied stays sought by Kenneth Smith, who is scheduled to die on Thursday in the nation’s first nitrogen gas execution.The U.S. Supreme Court and a federal appeals court each declined on Wednesday to intervene to stop Alabama from conducting the nation’s first-ever execution by nitrogen gas, putting the state on track to use the novel method to kill a death row prisoner.Alabama plans to use nitrogen gas to kill Kenneth Smith, who was convicted of a 1988 murder, after the state botched its previous attempt to execute him by lethal injection in November 2022. Barring any additional legal interventions, prison officials plan to bring him to the execution chamber in Atmore, Ala., on Thursday evening, place a mask on his face and pump nitrogen into it, depriving him of oxygen until he dies.The Supreme Court declined to intervene in Mr. Smith’s appeal of a state court case, in which his lawyers had argued that the second execution attempt would violate his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishments. The court’s order did not include an explanation or note any dissents.Hours later, in response to a separate challenge by Mr. Smith’s lawyers, a federal appeals court also declined to halt the execution over the dissent of one of the three judges who had heard the case. Mr. Smith’s lawyers said they would also appeal that case to the Supreme Court, potentially giving the justices another chance to intervene, though they have been reluctant to do so in last-minute death penalty appeals in recent years.Nitrogen gas has been used in assisted suicide in Europe and elsewhere, and the state’s lawyers contend that the method — known as nitrogen hypoxia — is painless and will quickly cause Mr. Smith to lose consciousness before he dies.But Mr. Smith and his lawyers have said they fear the state’s newly created protocol is not sufficient to prevent problems that could cause Mr. Smith severe suffering. The lawyers said in court papers that if the mask were a poor fit, it could allow oxygen in and prolong Mr. Smith’s suffering, or if he becomes nauseous, he could be “left to choke on his own vomit.”The execution is scheduled to take place around 6 p.m. Central time at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility, though it could be carried out any time until 6 a.m. the next morning. Mr. Smith has recently reported feeling increasingly nauseous as his anxiety grows about the looming execution, raising his lawyers’ fears about a mishap during the execution. Alabama prison officials said this week that they do not plan to allow him to have any food after 10 a.m. on Thursday in an effort to lower the likelihood that he vomits.Abbie VanSickle More

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      ¿Biden ha cumplido con las promesas que hizo en su campaña de 2020?

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      Detener la construcción del muro fronterizo, permitir que Medicare negocie el precio de los medicamentos y acabar con la pena de muerte fueron algunos de sus compromisos para llegar a la Casa Blanca.En plena campaña de reelección del presidente Joe Biden, los demócratas han proclamado una serie de logros durante su mandato. En ocasiones, Biden ha recordado que su predecesor, Donald Trump, no cumplió del todo sus promesas.Pero, como todos los políticos, se ha enfrentado a la realidad de que hacer campaña y gobernar son dos cosas muy distintas, sobre todo en un gobierno dividido. Aunque Biden ha cumplido algunas de las promesas que hizo en 2020, no todas se han materializado a tres años de su elección.Por un lado, Biden ratificó el compromiso de Estados Unidos con el Acuerdo de París, un pacto internacional destinado a reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero; revocó el permiso para el oleoducto Keystone XL, que habría transportado petróleo de Canadá a Nebraska, y aumentó los subsidios federales para las personas que compran planes conforme a la Ley de Atención Médica Accesible. Por otra parte, ha sido incapaz de impulsar en el Congreso estadounidense una legislación sobre el derecho al voto o la prohibición de las armas de asalto y su ambicioso plan de condonar la deuda a los estudiantes fue rechazado por completo por la Corte Suprema.A continuación, una muestra de algunos de los compromisos de la campaña presidencial de Biden de 2020 y en qué punto se encuentran.Algunas de las promesas de Biden en 2020:InmigraciónImpuestosAtención médicaEducaciónCambio climáticoJusticia penalPolítica exteriorInmigraciónLO QUE SE DIJO“No se construirá ni un metro más de muro en mi gobierno”.—En una entrevista de 2020 en NPRAl postularse a la presidencia, Biden hizo del muro fronterizo de Trump una parte central de su campaña. En su primer día en el cargo, anunció que ponía fin a la declaración de emergencia nacional que se había utilizado para destinar recursos a la construcción del muro.Pero en las últimas semanas, el gobierno de Biden ha manejado con ligereza una serie de leyes para permitir la construcción de nuevas barreras en Texas, a lo largo de la frontera suroeste. La medida se produce en el contexto de un aumento en el número de migrantes que cruzan la frontera sin autorización, lo que altera de manera drástica las presiones políticas sobre Biden.Biden ha sostenido la postura de que un muro fronterizo es ineficaz. Pero declaró que el financiamiento se consignó para el muro fronterizo en 2019 y que el Congreso no reasignaría esos fondos —a pesar de los pedidos públicos del gobierno para que lo hiciera— lo cual quiere decir que el financiamiento tenía que usarse para ese propósito. Una ley de 1974 obliga al presidente a gastar el dinero según las instrucciones del Congreso, y los funcionarios de la Casa Blanca han dicho que la única manera de evitarlo era presentar una demanda, algo que el gobierno de Biden decidió no hacer.Antes del anuncio reciente, el gobierno autorizó que se completen algunas brechas pequeñas en el muro.LO QUE SE DIJO“Poner fin a las políticas de asilo perjudiciales de Trump”.—Sitio web de la campaña de 2020.Durante su campaña de 2020, Biden criticó en público la estrategia migratoria del gobierno de Trump y argumentó que había desafiado la tradición estadounidense al tratar de “restringir drásticamente el acceso al asilo en Estados Unidos”. Pero su gobierno también ha intentado limitar el proceso de asilo para disminuir la migración no autorizada.En mayo, el gobierno promulgó una norma que presume que la mayoría de los migrantes que cruzan ilegalmente la frontera desde México entre los puertos de entrada no son elegibles para el asilo. La norma descalifica a la mayoría de los solicitantes si entraron a Estados Unidos sin cita previa en un punto de entrada oficial o no pueden demostrar que buscaron protección legal en otro país por el que cruzaron.Al igual que el gobierno de Trump, Biden ha tratado de limitar el proceso de asilo para desalentar la migración no autorizada.Verónica G. Cárdenas para The New York TimesLa norma tiene sus excepciones: no aplica a los menores no acompañados ni a migrantes que puedan demostrar que su vida estaba en peligro inminente, por ejemplo, pero los críticos dicen que el criterio es similar al de Trump.Respecto a la cuestión de la inmigración en general, los aliados de Biden en el Congreso propusieron un proyecto de ley en 2021 que habría transformado el sistema migratorio, pero en última instancia fracasó. Hasta principios de este año, también se mantuvo en vigor el Título 42, una regla sanitaria de la época de la pandemia que promulgó el gobierno de Trump para expulsar con rapidez a los inmigrantes que cruzaran ilegalmente al país.ImpuestosLO QUE SE DIJO“Les garantizo, palabra de un Biden, que ninguna persona que gane menos de 400.000 dólares pagará un solo centavo de impuestos. Ni un centavo”.—Durante un mitin de campaña en octubre de 2020Biden no les ha aumentado los impuestos a los contribuyentes dentro de ese umbral, como prometió. Pero sí se ha centrado en aumentar los impuestos a las empresas y a quienes ganan más de 400.000 dólares. Por ejemplo, el presupuesto que propuso para el año fiscal 2024, incluye un aumento a la tasa de impuesto para Medicare del 3,8 al 5 por ciento para los ingresos superiores a 400.000 dólares.No obstante, esa “no es la historia completa”, afirmó William McBride, vicepresidente de política fiscal federal de la Tax Foundation, un laboratorio de ideas derechista.McBride señaló que algunos análisis estiman que los aumentos de impuestos a las empresas podrían tener un efecto indirecto en toda la escala de ingresos, ya que la carga suele repercutir, al menos en parte, en los consumidores y los trabajadores, por ejemplo, a través de salarios o valores bursátiles más bajos. Aunque los cálculos difieren, un análisis de la Tax Foundation de 2022 llegó a la conclusión de que, a largo plazo, la Ley de Reducción de la Inflación podría reducir los ingresos después de impuestos en torno a un 0,2 por ciento para la mayoría de los grupos de ingresos, incluidos los que ganan menos de 400.000 dólares.Atención médicaLO QUE SE DIJO“El plan de Biden derogará la legislación existente que le prohíbe de manera explícita a Medicare negociar precios más bajos con las corporaciones farmacéuticas”.—Sitio web de la campaña de 2020Como presidente, Biden sí promulgó una ley que autorizaba al gobierno federal a negociar precios más bajos de algunos medicamentos para los beneficiarios de Medicare, pero sin derogar la ley vigente, sino añadiendo una excepción.Esa medida formaba parte de la Ley de Reducción de la Inflación aprobada en 2022. La Oficina Presupuestaria del Congreso ha calculado que el programa podría ahorrarle al gobierno unos 100.000 millones de dólares en una década. Los fabricantes de medicamentos han presentado múltiples demandas en un intento por detener el programa de fijación de precios de medicamentos.LO QUE SE DIJO“Lo que voy a hacer es aprobar Obamacare con una opción pública, para convertirla en Bidencare”.—Durante un debate de octubre de 2020Desde que asumió el cargo, Biden no ha tomado medidas formales para hacer realidad esta propuesta. De hecho, desde entonces, ha mencionado muy pocas veces su promesa de una opción pública, lo cual le daría a los estadounidenses la posibilidad de inscribirse a un plan de salud administrado por el gobierno.“Es justo decir que el presidente Biden no ha impulsado con fuerza la idea de una opción pública desde que llegó al cargo”, comentó Larry Levitt, vicepresidente ejecutivo de política sanitaria de KFF, un grupo sin fines de lucro centrado en política sanitaria.La primera propuesta presupuestaria de Biden, para el año fiscal 2022, abordaba su deseo de una opción pública, aunque con pocos detalles. Conseguir que el Congreso apruebe una opción pública sería, como sucede con algunas otras propuestas de campaña, un gran desafío.EducaciónLO QUE SE DIJO“Invertir en nuestras escuelas para eliminar la brecha de financiamiento entre distritos blancos y no blancos, y distritos ricos y pobres”.—Sitio web de la campaña de 2020Para lograr este objetivo, Biden propuso triplicar la financiación del Título I, que proporciona ayuda a las escuelas locales para beneficiar a los estudiantes de bajos ingresos. Durante la presidencia de Biden, el financiamiento de las subvenciones del Título I ha aumentado, pero de manera más modesta: en torno a un 11 por ciento, aunque sus defensores afirman que el impulso se ha visto atenuado por la inflación y el aumento de las inscripciones. Las propuestas del gobierno de aumentos mucho mayores han fracasado en el Congreso.Dado el tamaño del programa Título I —18.400 millones de dólares en el año fiscal 2023— triplicar el financiamiento en tres años mediante el proceso de asignaciones “no es realista”, dijo Sarah Abernathy, directora ejecutiva de Committee for Education Funding.Mientras que la Casa Blanca ha propuesto un aumento adicional en la financiación del Título I, un plan de los republicanos de la Cámara de Representantes ha pedido recortes severos.Biden propuso triplicar la financiación del Título I, que proporciona ayuda a las escuelas locales para beneficiar a los estudiantes de bajos ingresos.Logan R. Cyrus para The New York TimesEn su promesa de subsanar las diferencias entre los distritos, la campaña de Biden para 2020 citó a un grupo educativo ya desaparecido, que había evaluado las discrepancias en ese momento. Los expertos no conocían ningún análisis actual que ofreciera una comparación directa.Pero la financiación del Título I por sí sola no puede resolver estas carencias, porque los distritos escolares se financian mayoritariamente a nivel estatal y local, según Noelle Ellerson Ng, directora ejecutiva adjunta de defensa y gobernanza de AASA, la Asociación de Superintendentes de Distritos Escolares.LO QUE SE DIJO“Como presidente, Biden tratará de avanzar en este tema con la promulgación de leyes que garanticen que todas las personas trabajadoras, incluidos los que asisten a la escuela medio tiempo y los ‘dreamers’ (los adultos jóvenes que llegaron a Estados Unidos en la infancia), puedan ir a la universidad comunitaria durante un máximo de dos años de manera gratuita”.“Hacer que los colegios y las universidades públicas sean gratuitas para todas las familias cuyos ingresos son inferiores a 125.000 dólares anuales”, sitio web de la campaña de 2020El gobierno de Biden no ha conseguido hacer realidad estas promesas, aunque sí ha propuesto dedicarles fondos.Por ejemplo, en su plan de presupuesto para el año fiscal 2024, el gobierno solicitó 90.000 millones de dólares a lo largo de 10 años para que los dos primeros años de la universidad comunitaria fueran gratuitos.Además, el gobierno pidió dos años de “matrícula subsidiada” para los estudiantes de familias con ingresos inferiores a 125.000 dólares y, en específico, para los estudiantes que asisten a universidades históricamente negras u otras universidades que reciben a estudiantes de minorías.Cambio climáticoLO QUE SE DIJO“Ya no se perforarán las tierras federales, punto”.—Durante febrero de 2020 en un evento municipalContrario al compromiso de Biden en campaña, su gobierno aprobó formalmente en marzo un proyecto de perforación petrolera en Alaska conocido como Willow. El gobierno hizo hincapié en que limitó el proyecto, ya que rechazó dos de los cinco lugares de perforación propuestos e hizo que la empresa que lo promovía devolviera al gobierno unas 27.518 hectáreas de arrendamientos existentes.Desde entonces, Biden anunció una prohibición a la perforación de más de 5 millones de hectáreas de zonas naturales en la Reserva Nacional de Petróleo de Alaska y canceló los arrendamientos de perforación en el Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre del Ártico.En cuanto a otras medidas relacionadas con el cambio climático, la Ley de Reducción de la Inflación supuso una gran inversión en energías limpias, incluso mediante lucrativos incentivos fiscales que, según algunos datos, contribuyeron a estimular la inversión privada. Y el gobierno propuso normativas para limitar la contaminación de gases de efecto invernadero de las centrales eléctricas existentes.LO QUE SE DIJO“Como presidente, Biden trabajará con los gobernadores y alcaldes del país para apoyar el despliegue de más de 500.000 nuevos puntos de recarga públicos para finales de 2030”.—Sitio web de la campaña de 2020Con determinación, Biden ha presionado para ayudar a acelerar el cambio del país al uso de vehículos eléctricos, incluso mediante la propuesta de normas ambientales. También firmó leyes para invertir en estaciones de carga. Las leyes bipartidistas de infraestructura del 2021 incluyeron 7500 millones de dólares para construir esas estaciones.La Casa Blanca ha declarado que Estados Unidos está en vías de alcanzar 500.000 cargadores para 2030, aunque no especificó si esa estimación se refiere al total de cargadores públicos o a nuevos cargadores públicos, como decía el objetivo de la campaña.Con determinación, Biden ha presionado para ayudar a acelerar el cambio del país a los vehículos eléctricos.Gabby Jones para The New York TimesAlgunos expertos afirmaron que incluso alcanzar la meta de 500.000 estaciones de carga públicas será un desafío, aunque no imposible. “Es técnicamente factible alcanzar el objetivo, pero no será fácil”, comentó Kenneth Gillingham, profesor de Economía Medioambiental y Energética de la Universidad de Yale.Sin embargo, según algunas estimaciones, alcanzar los 500.000 cargadores públicos en 2030 no es suficiente. Un informe reciente de Alliance for Automotive Innovation, un grupo comercial, afirma que hoy se necesitan más de 530.000 cargadores, antes de que se produzca el aumento previsto en la adopción de vehículos eléctricos.Justicia penalLO QUE SE DIJO“Como no podemos tener la certeza que decidamos correctamente siempre en estos casos, debemos eliminar la pena de muerte”.—En X, plataforma antes conocida como Twitter, en julio de 2019Biden no ha eliminado la pena de muerte, para lo cual sería necesaria una ley. Su gobierno ha tomado algunas medidas para reducir el uso de la pena capital, pero algunos que se oponen a ella han dicho que Biden no ha actuado con suficiente agresividad.En 2021, el procurador general Merrick Garland impuso una moratoria a las ejecuciones federales después de que el gobierno de Trump reanudó la práctica tras un lapso de casi dos décadas sin ejecuciones. Durante la gestión de Garland, el Departamento de Justicia no ha solicitado la pena de muerte en nuevos casos.Dicho esto, los fiscales federales también se negaron a cambiar de rumbo en un caso iniciado en el gobierno de Trump que buscaba la pena de muerte para un hombre que mató a ocho personas en un ataque con camión en Manhattan en 2017. El sospechoso, Sayfullo Saipov, fue finalmente sentenciado este año a cadena perpetua después de que un jurado no se pusiera de acuerdo sobre si imponer la pena de muerte.El departamento también ha trabajado para mantener las penas de muerte existentes, como la impuesta a Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, condenado a muerte por su participación en los atentados del maratón de Boston de 2013.LO QUE SE DIJO“Usar el poder de clemencia del presidente para asegurar la liberación de individuos que enfrentan sentencias indebidamente largas por ciertos delitos no violentos y de drogas”, sitio web de la campaña de 2020Biden ha cumplido este compromiso, utilizando por primera vez el poder de clemencia en 2022, ya que conmutó las penas de 75 infractores por delitos de drogas y concedió tres indultos. Meses después, indultó a miles de personas condenadas por posesión de marihuana, según la ley federal.Política exteriorLO QUE SE DIJO“Regresaré a los soldados de combate en Afganistán a casa durante mi primer mandato”.—En respuesta a un cuestionario de 2020 de The New York TimesBiden cumplió este compromiso, ya que retiró a Estados Unidos de Afganistán en agosto de 2021 y dio por concluida la guerra más larga de la historia estadounidense, aunque el final fue caótico y mortal. La retirada ya se estaba gestando desde el gobierno de Trump.LO QUE SE DIJO“Si Teherán regresa al cumplimiento del acuerdo, el presidente Biden volverá a ratificar el acuerdo y utilizará una diplomacia dura y el apoyo de nuestros aliados para fortalecerlo y ampliarlo, al tiempo que presionaría con mayor eficacia contra las otras actividades desestabilizadoras de Irán”, sitio web de la campaña de 2020Biden se refería al acuerdo nuclear iraní de 2015, un acuerdo destinado a limitar el programa nuclear de Irán a cambio de la reducción de las sanciones. El gobierno de Trump se retiró del acuerdo en 2018. A pesar de más de un año de negociaciones tras la elección de Biden, Estados Unidos e Irán no lograron reincorporarse al acuerdo.Hace poco, el gobierno de Biden anunció nuevas sanciones contra Irán. La decisión se produjo al expirar una medida de las Naciones Unidas asociada al acuerdo nuclear, y también tras el ataque sorpresa del 7 de octubre contra Israel por parte de Hamás, que recibe apoyo de Irán. More

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      If Mike Pence Is a Big Hero, We’re in Big Trouble

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I know we’ll get to the latest Trump indictment in a moment, but I wanted to start by raising a subject we haven’t discussed in detail before: capital punishment. Last week, a jury sentenced Robert Bowers, who murdered 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, to death. I sort of assume you’re against the death penalty but wanted to know your reaction to the verdict.Gail Collins: Bret, many folks who are opposed to the death penalty — including me — feel that if there was one time they’d like to see an exception, it’d be the Tree of Life mass murder.Bret: Agreed.Gail: Still, I wish the jury had come back with a life sentence. Tell that miserable excuse of a human being that he’s going to spend the rest of his existence alone, in a cell, being shunned and treated like the pariah he is.The death penalty just doesn’t work for me. On the intellectual side, there isn’t convincing evidence to suggest that the death penalty deters violent crime. And on the moral side, I just can’t see responding to the deliberate taking of life with deliberate taking of life.I assume you disagree?Bret: I always thought the sole purpose of capital punishment was justice, so even if the death penalty did deter violent crime, that argument wouldn’t hold water with me. But my support has softened over the years, mainly because, as I grow older, I think it’s wrong to foreclose the possibility of atonement and redemption in prison, particularly for those who committed crimes when they were young.Gail: Good thought.Bret: And yet there are some crimes that are so premeditated, hateful and cruel that I think society has to respond in the severest way possible. Life in prison with three meals a day, an hour for exercise, friendships with other inmates, answering fan mail (and there will be fan mail) — all that mocks the idea of justice. I don’t for a second doubt that justice was done when the war criminal Adolf Eichmann was hanged or the serial killer Ted Bundy was executed or the terrorist Timothy McVeigh was killed by lethal injection. Bowers belongs in their company.And, um, speaking of justice, what do we make of Trump indictment No. 3?Gail: We’ve gotten to the real bottom line, Trump-crime-wise. The country can get past a president who breaks the law in his private life, hides official documents and hides the evidence that he hides official documents. But we can’t survive a president who makes a serious attempt to wreck the election system and stay in office after he’s been voted out.That just can’t be overlooked. He has to be punished.Bret: I thought the right remedy for Jan. 6 was political, via immediate impeachment and conviction, as I wrote at the time. I worry that the latest case is going to turn on the question of whether Donald Trump truly believed he had won the election and could have his vice president reject electoral ballots. In other words, it’s going to be about Trump’s state of mind and his First Amendment rights, rather than the disgrace of his behavior, which increases the chances of his ultimate acquittal.Gail: All this drama keeps bringing me back to Mike Pence — and believe me, I never thought I’d be in a world where I wanted to be back with Mike Pence in any way, shape or form. But when the critical moment came, he followed through and declared the actual election winner the actual election winner.Bret: Sorry, but I will never buy the whole “Mike Pence was a hero” business. He was Trump’s faithful enabler for more than four years, his beard with evangelicals, his ever-nodding yes man. He was mute for the eight weeks after the 2020 election when his boss was busy denying the result. He called Kamala Harris to congratulate her only on Jan. 15, more than two months after she and Joe Biden were declared the winners. And if Pence had tried to overturn the election on Jan. 6, he’d now be facing his own federal indictment.Gail: No way I’m going to battle on behalf of the virtues of Mike Pence. You win.Bret: The only Republican I like these days is Chris Christie. I forgive him for endorsing Trump in 2016 because he’s going so hard and so eloquently against his former friend. I also think he has the right theory of the primary race, which is that the only way to beat Trump is to oppose him frontally. Unfortunately, he’s likelier to end up as Liz Cheney’s rival on “Dancing With the Stars” than he is in the White House.Gail: Well, I’d certainly pay good money to watch that season.But right now, I’m just rooting for a Christie smash-down at that Republican debate this month. Looks like he’ll qualify. And I guess Trump will be too chicken to attend, right?Bret: My guess, too. He has such a commanding lead over the other Republicans that a debate can only hurt him, particularly with Christie in the ring.Switching topics: Congress and spending!Gail: My favorite!Bret: I’d like to propose a legislative idea to you and see if we can find common ground. Right now we have serious problems with our defense-industrial infrastructure. Our shipyards don’t have enough resources to build sufficient numbers of submarines, destroyers and frigates to increase the size of the Navy. Many of our existing ships must wait years for necessary repairs even as we face a growing maritime challenge from China. We’re struggling to replace all of the munitions we’ve given to Ukraine, especially artillery shells but also Stingers and Javelins. And inflation has eaten away at the value of our defense dollars. This doesn’t get a lot of mainstream attention, but people close to the problem understand that it borders on an emergency.So my suggestion is that pro-Ukraine Democrats and anti-China Republicans — and vice versa — unite around legislation that would fund a five-year, $250 billion supplemental defense bill to refurbish our defense infrastructure, create thousands of unionized jobs, restock our munitions and help our allies. In honor of Franklin Roosevelt, I would call it the Arsenal of Democracy Bill. Are you on board?Gail: Hmm. Appreciate your concerns about the shortage of military supplies, and I feel pretty supportive of our aid to Ukraine.My big reservation, however, is that the Pentagon doesn’t really need the extra money. It could come up with the funds itself if it would just cut back on waste. The infamous overcharging by suppliers, for instance, and the purchase of way more planes and weapons than we need.Bret: There’s waste in every government program. Progressives mainly seem to notice it when it comes to the one item of government spending they don’t like.Gail: Defense spending tends to get bipartisan support, not so much because it’s worthy as because so many lawmakers see the money going into their districts. Good target for conservative cost cutting.Sorry, F.D.R.Bret: This seems to me an opportunity for a real bipartisan victory that brings the country around the sensible objective of being strong in the face of aggressive autocracies. I’m picturing a bill sponsored by Richard Blumenthal, one of Connecticut’s two Democratic senators, whose state makes many of our nuclear submarines, and Mike Gallagher, the intelligent and sensible Republican congressman from Wisconsin.Gail: Fine lawmakers, but I’m still not buying that one.Bret: OK, enough of my legislative fantasies. Question for you: Considering that the economy is doing relatively well, why aren’t Biden’s poll numbers better — not even on how he handles the economy?Gail: Excellent question. You’d think a guy who passes breakthrough legislation on everything from education to global warming, who has done a terrific job handling a very troubled economy and is respected as a leader around the world would be superpopular. And I truly think if you had an actual election right now, people would turn out in droves to give Biden another term.Bret: I wouldn’t be so sure. The latest New York Times/Siena poll has Trump and Biden in a dead heat. Sixty-five percent of voters think the country is on the wrong track. Food prices keep moving up. The effects of the migration crisis, which have now hit so many places far north of the border, will be felt for years in housing, the school system, even parks. There’s a palpable sense of urban decay in one city after another. Kamala Harris makes a lot of independent voters nervous. Also — and I can’t say this enough, even if it isn’t nice — Biden just seems feeble.Gail: I said if we had an election now, they’d turn out in droves to vote for Biden. Not that they’d be excited about it. The ideal opposition to a crazy, irresponsible former reality TV star isn’t a calm, 80-year-old career politician. I think people are yearning for somebody who’s charismatic and able to get them wildly excited about the future — like the early Barack Obama.We’ll see if anybody pops up.Bret: That person would be Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan. But I guess we’re just going to have to accept the cards we’re dealt. Feeble versus evil. Can’t America do better?The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      in US Politics

      ‘Innocent is innocent, period’: Richard Glossip on facing execution again

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      ‘Innocent is innocent, period’: Richard Glossip on facing execution again Oklahoma man has had his execution temporarily called off several times since he was sentenced to death as the list of flaws in the prosecution case grows longer by the dayRichard Glossip is intimately acquainted with the cell in Oklahoma state penitentiary known as “LL”. He’s been inside its 8ft by 12ft grey walls three times, waiting to be taken to the room next door – the death chamber.Glossip was brought into the cell each time at 3am on the morning of his scheduled execution. In a letter and phone call with the Guardian from death row in McAlester, Oklahoma, last week, he described what it was like spending what he thought were his final few hours inside LL as the clock ticked down.“One side of the cell is covered in bright lights that never go off, like you are out in the sun,” he said. “You are watched by cameras as well as a guard who sits outside your door 24/7.”As Glossip’s date with death grew closer, guards started holding mock executions. They would lead an actor dressed in prison uniform into the death chamber, strap him on the gurney and then role-play the execution procedure from start to finish.The entire dress rehearsal was carried out in Glossip’s full view. “I could see everything. I could have stayed in the back of the cell and tried not to watch, but I didn’t because I knew I was next.”The most recent time Glossip was in cell LL was on 30 September 2015. “It was the hardest day of my life,” he said.He remembers shivering in his boxer shorts, pacing up and down to keep warm in the cell which was cold as a meat locker. He repeatedly asked the guards what was happening, and could he talk to his attorney.No idea, and no, they replied.“The execution team was supposed to come and get me within 15 minutes and take me in [to the death chamber]. But nobody came. I paced and paced, prayed harder than I ever have. ‘Please God, stop them from doing this to me’.”Two hours after his scheduled execution time, a man in a suit entered LL and told Glossip that he had been granted a stay. “It was like the heaviest weight had been lifted off of me,” he said. “My prayers were answered.” The euphoria the prisoner felt after each of his three executions were temporarily called off didn’t last long. Not when a state as relentless in its pursuit of capital punishment as Oklahoma was out to get him.He was sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, owner of a Best Budget motel in Oklahoma City where Glossip worked as manager. No one has ever accused him of actually killing Van Treese.Rather, Justin Sneed, a maintenance worker at the motel with a methamphetamine habit, confessed that all on his own he beat Van Treese to death with a baseball bat. Sneed later turned state’s witness and testified that Glossip had ordered the murder.On the strength of Sneed’s testimony, with no other forensic or corroborating evidence, the state secured a death sentence for Glossip while the sole killer, Sneed, was given life without parole. Glossip, who went through two trials in 1998 and 2004 and was convicted twice, has always pleaded innocence.In August, Oklahoma’s governor Kevin Stitt granted Glossip another reprieve, ordering a 60-day stay to give the courts time to consider new evidence. The postponement came just a day before the prisoner was due to be put back into “death watch”, the month-long formal countdown which ends with him being put in cell LL.Now the whole grim process is starting up again. A new execution date has been set and unless something dramatic happens Glossip, 59, will before long find himself once again back inside LL at 3am, watching the clock tick down.It’s a prospect that leaves his lawyer, Don Knight, profoundly troubled. He is distressed that his client has been brought so close to execution multiple times, likening the trauma to the way Islamic State has taken hostages to be beheaded and then called off the killing only to repeat it the following day.“That’s where we are, we’ve fallen that low,” Knight said.The lawyer is also deeply concerned about Glossip because he is convinced that an innocent man is facing imminent execution. Knight has been involved in about 50 capital cases and for him, the Glossip case stands in a league of its own.“From the very first moment I saw this case, it never made any sense,” he said in an interview. “It was blatantly obvious to me, from the start, that this was a bad prosecution.”Last year the global law firm Reed Smith was invited by state legislators to take a close look at the Glossip conviction. They produced a 343-page report which revealed a spate of alarming deficiencies in the prosecution.The firm discovered that the police investigation into Van Treese’s murder had been glaringly mishandled. Sneed, the sole killer and the state’s star witness, had been contaminated – he only implicated Glossip as the mastermind behind the murder after detectives invoked the motel manager’s name six times during the interrogation.Reed Smith revealed that critical physical evidence and financial documents had been destroyed by prosecutors before Glossip’s trial – a gross violation of legal process – while other evidence that could have transformed the case was never presented to the jury. The firm concluded that “no reasonable juror hearing the complete record would have convicted Richard Glossip of first-degree murder”.Since the Reed Smith report was released in June, an avalanche of new information has been obtained casting further doubt on the conviction and death sentence.Investigators found a handwritten letter from Sneed to his defense lawyer dated 2007, three years after the killer’s testimony at trial sent Glossip to death row. “There are a lot of things right now that are eating at me. Somethings I need to clean up,” he wrote. “I think you know were (sic) I’m going it was a mistake reliving this.”Fresh doubt about the Sneed’s reliability as a witness has surfaced in the past two weeks. Reed Smith has put out new findings that show that he discussed “recanting” his testimony with several people over an 11-year period.The most powerful new evidence points to allegedly improper communications between the lead prosecutor at Glossip’s trial, Connie Smothermon, and Sneed’s lawyer Gina Walker (who died in 2020). Lawyers for Glossip argue this was a breach of sequestration – the rule that prevents witnesses hearing what other witnesses say to avoid tainting their testimony.Documents disclosed by the state attorney general last month contained email exchanges between Smothermon and Walker. In them, the prosecutor raised concerns about a specific aspect of Sneed’s testimony – a knife.Sneed had told police that he was the only person present when he battered Van Treese to death. He also insisted that he had not used a knife in the attack.Yet on 25 May 2004 the medical examiner at Glossip’s trial, Dr Chai Choi, told the jury that the victim had puncture wounds on the body and that these amounted to a “stabbing type injury”. A knife was found underneath Van Treese’s corpse.How could Van Treese have cuts on his body when Sneed was the only attacker but did not use the knife? According to Reed Smith investigators, Smothermon sent an email to Sneed’s lawyer on the same day as Choi’s testimony.“Our biggest problem is still the knife,” the prosecutor told Walker. “The victim and Justin both have ‘lacerations’ which could be caused from fighting / falling on furniture with edges or from a knife blade.”She ended the email on a note of urgency. Referring to Sneed, she said: “We should get to him this afternoon.”The next day, 26 May 2004, Sneed addressed the jury at Glossip’s retrial. He now told a very different story, saying that did indeed stab Van Treese in the chest.“It now appears that Sneed tailored his testimony on the use of the knife,” Reed Smith concluded.Unreliable star witness, incompetent police investigation, destroyed evidence, manufactured testimony – the list of flaws in the prosecution case grows longer by the day. “The whole thing from Walker and Smothermon, and Sneed’s changed testimony, it disgusts me,” Knight said.Justin Humphrey, a Republican legislator in Oklahoma, used even sharper words. At a press conference to reveal the new evidence last month, he introduced himself as a “strong proponent of the death penalty”.Then he addressed the prosecutors who had secured Glossip’s death sentence on seemingly shakey grounds: “You put a person on death row, you are looking at taking a person’s life. Which makes you no better than a murderer to me – why would you do that? Why would you manufacture evidence?”The Guardian invited Smothermon, now teaching at the University of Oklahoma, to comment but she did not immediately respond. In a statement, Oklahoma’s current attorney general John O’Connor said that he had seen “no evidence” of Glossip’s innocence.“It is disappointing that Glossip’s supporters are criticizing law enforcement, prosecutors, juries, and judges in an attempt to distract the public from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of Glossip’s guilt,” O’Connor said.Glossip now has two petitions before the Oklahoma court of criminal appeals calling for a new evidentiary hearing.Knight said that what has happened to Glossip should worry all of us. “This is what happens when the state is allowed to run amok. They can convict anybody of anything. And that’s what happened here. They poured their resources on top of an ordinary guy to show what they could do. And when that’s the case, none of us are safe.”Glossip has been given a new execution date: 8 December. “The clock is ticking again. I can feel it,” he said.On two separate occasions, he was offered a plea deal that would have taken him off death row and given life without parole instead. Both times he declined; he was not prepared to plead guilty to something he says he did not do.“Innocent is innocent, period,” he wrote to the Guardian.I asked him during the prison phone call whether he would regret making that decision were he to find himself, on 8 December, back in cell LL.“I mean yes,” he said. “I still believe that innocent is innocent. You fight again.”Whatever comes?“Whatever comes,” he said.TopicsCapital punishmentOklahomaUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Oklahoma lawmakers urge pause amid fears innocent man to be executed

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      Oklahoma lawmakers urge pause amid fears innocent man to be executedBipartisan group calls for new hearing over lack of evidence in case of Richard Glossip, 59, as state rushes to speed up executions A letter signed by 61 Oklahoma lawmakers – most of them pro-death penalty Republicans – has been sent to the state’s attorney general calling for a new hearing in the case of Richard Glossip, a death row inmate scheduled to be executed next month.Forty-four Republican and 17 Democratic legislators, amounting to more than a third of the state assembly, have written to John O’Connor pleading for the new hearing.Alabama executes Joe Nathan James Jr despite opposition from victim’s familyRead moreThe outpouring of concern is an indication of the intense unease surrounding the Glossip case, and the mounting fear that Oklahoma is preparing to kill an innocent man.Glossip, 59, is due to be killed on 22 September as part of a sudden speeding up of capital punishment activity in Oklahoma. He was sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, the owner of a Best Budget motel in Oklahoma City, where Glossip was manager.Justin Sneed, the motel’s maintenance worker, admitted that he had beaten Van Treese to death with a baseball bat. But Sneed later turned state’s witness on Glossip, accusing the manager of having ordered the murder.As a result, Sneed, the killer, avoided the death penalty and was given a life sentence. Glossip was put on death row almost entirely on the basis of Sneed’s testimony against him, with no other forensic or corroborating evidence.In their letter, the 61 legislators ask the attorney general to call for a hearing to consider new evidence that has been uncovered in the case. Last year a global law firm, Reed Smith, was asked by state lawmakers to carry out an independent investigation.Their 343-page report found that the state had intentionally destroyed key evidence before the trial. The review concluded that “no reasonable juror hearing the complete record would have convicted Richard Glossip of first-degree murder”.Glossip’s scheduled execution forms part of an extraordinary glut of death warrants that have been issued by Oklahoma in recent weeks. In July, the state received court permission to go ahead with 25 executions at a rate of almost one a month between now and December 2024.Should all those executions be carried out, Oklahoma’s current death row would shrink by almost 60% from its current occupancy of 43 prisoners.The first scheduled execution of the 25 is that of James Coddington, 50, on 25 August. Coddington’s fate is now in the hands of Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma’s Republican governor, after the state’s parole board recommended that he commute the prisoner’s sentence to life without parole.The clemency petition pointed out that Coddington had been impaired by alcohol and drug abuse starting when he was a baby. It said he had shown full remorse for having murdered Albert Hale, a friend who had refused to lend him $50 to buy cocaine.Glossip is the second of the 25 death row inmates to be booked for execution.The Republican-controlled state is rushing to kill so many prisoners over the next two years as it rebounds from a six-year capital punishment moratorium that was forced upon it following a spate of gruesomely botched executions. In April 2014 Clayton Lockett writhed and groaned on the gurney after lethal injection drugs were administered into his flesh rather than a vein – he took 43 minutes to die.In January, 2015 Charles Warner was heard to say: “My body is on fire” as he was being killed. It was later discovered that the state had used an unauthorized drug in the procedure.Glossip was set to be the next one to die in September 2015 but the execution was postponed after it emerged that the same mistaken drug was about to be used. Oklahoma halted executions for six years before the practice was cranked up again last October.Remarkably, the first execution carried out after the hiatus in October 2021 was also botched. Witnesses saw John Grant displaying full-body convulsions and vomiting for 15 minutes.TopicsOklahomaRepublicansCapital punishmentDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More