Our pro-life president (via Politico):

"President Bush this morning accepted the recommendation of the Secretary of the Army to approve a sentence of death for Army Private Ronald A. Gray, affirming the sentence that resulted from a general court martial for multiple charges of murder and rape committed while serving as a member of the Armed Services. While approving a sentence of death for a member of our Armed Services is a serious and difficult decision for a Commander-in-Chief, the President believes the facts of this case leave no doubt that the sentence is just and warranted. Private Gray was convicted of committing brutal crimes, including two murders, an attempted murder, and three rapes. The victims included a civilian and two members of the Army. Because additional legal challenges are expected in this case, we will decline to comment further. The Presidents thoughts and prayers are with the victims of these heinous crimes and their families and all others affected."

And some background on the military death penalty, which puts the decision directly in the president's (and, by extension, our) hands:

In the military justice system, a member of the Armed Forces cannot be executed until the President approves the death sentence. Thus, unlike the civilian context, where the President may be asked to exercise his clemency authority to stop an execution, in the military system, the President effectively orders the execution. This is an important distinction. This is very rare. The last President to act on a military death sentence was John F. Kennedy in 1962, when he commuted a death sentence to confinement for life. President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved the last military execution in 1957; it was carried out in 1961.

Eduardo M. Peñalver is the Allan R. Tessler Dean of the Cornell Law School. The views expressed in the piece are his own, and should not be attributed to Cornell University or Cornell Law School.

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