Protesters outside the capitol in Harrisburg on Oct. 11, 2003. It would be another 12 years before Gov Tom Wolf put a moratorium on executions. Until the death penalty is legally abolished, the state continues to issue execution warrants to death row inmates. (AP Photo/Brad C. Bower)
Joseph Darius Jaafari was a staff writer for the PA Post. His work covering crime, the military and LGBTQ issues has been featured in The Marshall Project, Rolling Stone Magazine, The Atlantic and The New York Times. He is a graduate of the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has produced for VICE and The New York Post. He is a native Arizonan and infamous for his love of tacos.
AP Photo/Brad C. Bower
Protesters outside the capitol in Harrisburg on Oct. 11, 2003. It would be another 12 years before Gov Tom Wolf put a moratorium on executions. Until the death penalty is legally abolished, the state continues to issue execution warrants to death row inmates. (AP Photo/Brad C. Bower)
Good morning Context readers! I’m Joseph Darius Jaafari, PA Post’s newest reporter. Also, I’m new to this state, generally. So, please e-mail, call or slide into my DMs with story tips, or if you just wanna’ teach me how to properly pronounce your town’s name or the names of your local bodies of water. Today, we’re looking at the death penalty in Pennsylvania and where our state leaders — and most importantly, YOU — stand on keeping or abolishing it. – Joseph Darius Jaafari, PA Post reporter
In lieu of repeal, the bureaucratic machinery carries on
AP Photo/Brad C. Bower
Protesters outside the capitol in Harrisburg on Oct. 11, 2003. It would be another 12 years before Gov Tom Wolf put a moratorium on executions. Until the death penalty is legally abolished, the state continues to issue execution warrants to death row inmates. (AP Photo/Brad C. Bower)
Last Friday, Department of Corrections Secretary John E. Wetzel signed a warrant that scheduled Jakeem Towles’s execution for Dec. 13. Towles was sentenced to death in 2012 after he shot and killed a fellow rapper two years before. Multiple media outlets picked up on the secretary signing the warrant, but – and here’s the rub – the action is pretty pointless.
That’s because Gov. Tom Wolf put a moratorium in place in 2015 to bar the state from following through on any executions. Procedurally, the warrants are premature since they’re typically signed before an inmate’s appeals are exhausted. A federal judge from Pa.’s Eastern District stayed Towles’s execution because he still has an appeal available. And even if Towles exhausted his appeals, the governor’s moratorium precludes an execution, at least until Wolf leaves office in 2023. Essentially, signing the warrants is administrative busy work.
I got Mark on the phone yesterday to ask if there’d been anything new to the process. Spoiler alert, the answer was no. “It’s just odd that people keep pumping out these pieces of paper,” he told me from his home in (sunny and warm) Dallas, Texas. “It’s not irrelevant; it’s a waste of taxpayer resources.”
Speaking of the death penalty, a lawsuit was successful in securing better conditions for Pa.’s death row inmates, The settlement requires that corrections officials provide the inmates at least 42.5 hours a week outside of their cell, the Associated Press reports.
Best of the rest
Jacqueline Larma / AP Photo
House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, addresses the House chamber after taking the oath of office on Jan. 1, 2019. Turzai proposed a “pilot” program that would allow Harrisburg parents to use public funds to pay for private schools. (Jacqueline Larma / AP Photo)
The Speaker of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives, Republican Mike Turzai, is pushing a plan to give Harrisburg residents the opportunity to use public funds to cover the costs of sending their children to private schools. People opposed to the idea say that it would take valuable money away from the city’s already beleaguered public school system, Keystone Crossroads reports.
It’s Taco Tuesday, y’all! And Taco Bell, the chain that invented the “fourth meal” — the spicy, crunchy, chewy, cheesy midnight delight — is being sued over a couple dollars and some change. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Oona Goodin-Smith gets five stars for the puns in this piece. (I’m marginally annoyed I didn’t come up with “cold, hard-shell justice,” myself.)
In more epicurean news, the only two Joe Coffee locations left in PA are closing their doors because of tough competition from local roasters and coffee shops, reports BillyPenn. As a former Brooklynite and, by default, coffee connoisseur, I know that coffee is life. So, here’s a list PennLive published to help you find the best local coffee shops in central Pa.
Republicans think freshman Democrat Conor Lamb is vulnerable in next year’s election, and they’re already dropping money on ads blasting his record. Lamb tweeted out a fundraising appeal on Monday asking for contributions to help him overcome the GOP spending. According to the document Lamb linked to, Republicans are spending $200,000 on ads in the Pittsburgh market. (Note, the “GRPS” mentioned in the document refers to “gross rating points,” a measure that supposedly amounts to one advertisement being viewed by at least 1 percent of the audience in a particular market.)