USA | Will Trump's Record-Setting Execution Spree Create Biden’s “Dukakis Moment?”

Even without Tuesday’s execution of William LeCroy, the Trump Administration had already racked up more executions in ten weeks than any president since the 1950's.

With today’s (9/24/2020) execution of Christopher Vialva, there will be several additional noteworthy facts about this federal execution spree:

Seven federal executions within eleven weeks ties the seven executions during President Harry Truman’s entire 8 years in office.
This is the first federal execution of a prisoner who was still in his teens at the time of the crime, who was also developmentally delayed due to a bout of meningitis as an infant.
This will be the first federal execution of a Black man after five Caucasians and the only American Indian on death row.

No other federal executions are currently scheduled, but the original intention of these executions has been achieved. The president’s reelection campaign scripted these executions perfectly as part of their “law and order” messaging.

In fact, immediately following the first federal execution in 17 years, the Trump campaign issued an e-mail touting the achievement and challenging Joe Biden to explain why he would not execute an “evil killer” such as Daniel Lee.

The e-mail celebrates achieving “total justice” for the murder victims when, in that case, the victim’s family pleaded with the President to not carry out the execution and instead commute the sentence to life without parole.

Two of the executions took place during the week of the Republican National Convention. There was no mention of these executions during the convention, but surely it was on the tip of the president’s tongue. President Trump's patient restraint has been remarkable.

However, we won’t have to wait much longer. Next week is the first live presidential debate, when we may see President Trump pull this out of his pocket as a way to distinguish himself from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

“I’ve executed seven killers,” Trump will say. “You Democrats are weak on crime. Your platform calls for abolishing executions. Why should we let such evil killers live?”

Seven prisoners will have been killed to create this practically unavoidable bear trap. Will Biden step in it, or skirt it? It will be tricky to address this challenge without giving the Trump campaign exactly the sound bite all of these executions are designed to produce. Will this be Joe Biden’s “Dukakis moment,” or is he ready to effectively pivot, to be pro-victim and tough on crime while also clearly and concisely explaining why the death penalty fails us as a public policy and a crime-fighting tool?

For the younger set, in the 1988 presidential race, Massachussetts Governor Michael Dukakis gave a matter-of-fact response of opposition to the death penalty when he was challenged in a live debate by George H.W. Bush to explain how he (Dukakis) would react if his wife were to be murdered. This created an opening that the Bush campaign exploited so effectively that Dukakis was never able to recover.

Times were different then, and we know so much more now then we did then about how the death penalty fails us as a public policy. Public opinion on the matter has shifted significantly, and many conservatives, republicans, and other people in the “pro-life” community now reject capital punishment.

Joe Biden, long a champion of the death penalty, surprised everyone when his presidential campaign announced a criminal justice policy that does not support capital punishment. His stated policy points to the concern of wrongful convictions, a concern so real that his web page needs to update the numbers. It says “Over 160 individuals” have been exonerated and released from death row, but as of last week that number is now 172. That number will only grow.

Today is the seventh scheduled federal execution under the Trump administration. So far, every one of these executions have been carried out, despite the pandemic and in some cases, with questionable legal shenanigans.

The day President Trump took office there were at least 11 federal death row prisoners who had exhausted their appeals and were ready for an execution date. Why did the Trump team wait 27 months to announce execution dates? Simply put, Team Trump wanted to exploit the hot-button issue of the death penalty to help with the Trump reelection effort.

The dates were originally set for December and January, right at the beginning of the primary and caucus season for Democrats. Various legal challenges stayed those dates, but the legal challenge to questions regarding the method of execution was dismissed by April, conveniently allowing dates to be reset so as to play perfectly into the convention and debate schedule. Here we go.

Popcorn, anyone?

Pivot Points on the Death Penalty:

We can be safe from dangerous individuals and hold them accountable without killing them. This is what we do in the vast majority of cases where the death penalty is possible. Most killers get a sentence of “death by incarceration,” also known as life in prison with no possibility of parole.
We know the death penalty does not deter killers any more than incarceration does, but simply trying for a death sentence means that prosecutors are going to spend at least twice as much money in a capital trial as they would if they were not seeking an execution. Every death penalty trial is a gamble with tax-payer’s money because even if a conviction is certain, fewer and fewer juries’ hand down death sentences these days.
Executions do not serve the needs of murder victim families, and it is a misnomer to suggest that the possible execution of a killer years in the future might help the victim families. What society is really doing when we offer the death penalty as a commodity for murder victim families is asking a tiny percentage of victim families to put their healing process on hold for decades in the hope of possible execution in the future. At the same time, using the death penalty so infrequently sends the message to the vast majority of murder victim families that, “your loved one was not valuable enough for us to seek or win a death sentence.”
Executions run the risk of getting it wrong in a way that cannot be corrected. At this writing, there have been 172 exonerations of wrongly convicted Americans sent to death row, and those are just the ones who have been freed so far. How many are waiting? How many have been killed? Even one wrongful execution is too many.
The death penalty is racist in its application. One of the greatest indicators of which killers get a death sentence is that the victim was white. The maps that show where lynchings happened regularly are remarkably similar to the maps where the most state executions have taken place. With the new report from the death penalty information center, we now understand more clearly than ever before just how pervasive systemic racism is in the criminal legal system.
If for no other reason than to live up to the bedrock foundation of our legal system, the four words carved into the face of the US Supreme Court building (Equal Justice Under Law), we must abolish the death penalty.

What is Death Penalty Action doing about it?

Death Penalty Action has built a coalition of nearly 200 organizations so far, calling on Congress to address this issue. The specific requests are:

Speak out against the upcoming federal executions on September 22 & 24, 2020;
Address pervasive and systemic racism in the criminal legal system by ending the federal death penalty;
Remove the power of the president to use executions for his own political purposes by passing legislation to end the federal death penalty and prohibit any further federal executions;
Investigate the Trump reelection campaign’s scripting of federal executions and address any ethics violations or violations of the law, if found;
Investigate the conduct of the Attorney General, the Department of Justice, and the Bureau of Prisons in light of troubling facts raising questions about the legality and constitutionality of the executions conducted on July 14 & 16, 2020;
Close the legal loophole that allowed the federal government to override the Navajo Nation’s stated desire that Lezmond Mitchell not face execution.

Sign the petition here.

Add your group to the organizational sign-on letter here.

Donate to support this work here.

Visit this page for more that you can do to help stop federal executions.

Source: Death Penalty Action, Staff, September 24, 2020

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Kansas AG urges governor to deny clemency to 8 sentenced to death

TOPEKA — Attorney General Kris Kobach on Tuesday urged the governor to deny clemency to Kansas inmates who have been sentenced to death. Eight of nine people sentenced to death in Kansas formally filed clemency requests in May, according to a press release from the Attorney General’s Office. Kobach urged Gov. Laura Kelly to reject them.

Idaho will soon turn to firing squad executions. Police will pull the triggers

Trained members of Idaho law enforcement with demonstrated firearms proficiency are expected to fill slots for carrying out the death penalty by firing squad as the state prison system transitions to the controversial execution method next month. Six volunteers certified for no less than three years apiece through Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST, will be recruited to ensure the Idaho Department of Correction is ready to comply with a state law that prioritizes shooting prisoners to death over lethal injection starting July 1. No one on the team may have faced disciplinary action over firearms, use of force, or related conduct over the prior year, according to new execution protocols the prison system released this week.

SCOTUS: Alabama can’t execute Jeffery Lee by nitrogen; Thursday execution called off

After a week of legal volleyball, Alabama death row inmate Jeffery Lee’s execution—scheduled for Thursday evening—was called off after federal courts called the state’s nitrogen gas execution method “likely unconstitutional.” The state took the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping Lee could still be put to death tonight. In an order issued at 8:10 p.m., the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that it would not lift a ban on Alabama executing Lee via nitrogen . In a short court order, the justices denied Alabama’s motion to go ahead with the execution. Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch would have granted the appeal and let the execution proceed, according to the order.

Alabama | Judge bars nitrogen gas execution, says method is unconstitutionally cruel

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- A federal judge on Tuesday permanently blocked Alabama from executing an inmate with nitrogen gas after declaring it violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. District Judge Emily Marks issued the ruling hours after an appeals court reversed her initial finding that the method was constitutional. Marks permanently enjoined the state from executing Jeffrey Lee, 49, by nitrogen gas. He was scheduled to be executed Thursday. The decision, for now, blocks the use of the controversial new execution method that the state has championed since 2024, but the issue will likely end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

With nitrogen gas blocked, Alabama seeks to execute inmate by lethal injection

Jeffery Lee, who successfully challenged his scheduled Thursday execution by nitrogen gas, argued that execution by firing squad would be less painful. The Alabama Attorney General’s Office Friday sought to put an Alabama death row inmate to death by lethal injection a day after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed the state’s attempt to execute him by nitrogen gas. In a filing with the Alabama Supreme Court Friday afternoon, the state sought an expedited motion to set a new execution date for Jeffery Lee, 49. The state said that with a permanent injunction in place against nitrogen gas, the method by which the state intended to execute Lee on Thursday, it could execute him by lethal injection or the electric chair.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

New Mississippi billboard warns criminals: ‘Firing squad is legal’

DESOTO COUNTY, Miss. (WREG) — A billboard standing on Interstate 55 southbound as you cross the Tennessee state line and enter Mississippi from Memphis is sending a grim message to those coming into the state. DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton recently announced the new billboard campaign, which features the sign reading, “WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. WHERE THE FIRING SQUAD IS LEGAL. THINK TWICE.” It references Mississippi’s law permitting execution by firing squad under certain circumstances for inmates sentenced to death. Barton says this campaign is aimed at deterring violent crime and sends a direct message to criminals entering Mississippi.

US | Army lays groundwork for death row executions if Trump gives approval

The Army is preparing to carry out the executions of the military's four death-row inmates if ordered to do so by the president, according to an internal planning document reviewed by ABC News. If carried out, it would mark the first time the military executed convicted American inmates in more than a half-century The plan, dubbed "Operation Resolute Justice" and issued internally in February, directs Army officials to coordinate with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer condemned prisoners from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the federal execution facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the Justice Department carried out a series of non-military federal executions during President Donald Trump's first term.

Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch wanted an execution that a Trump judge deemed illegal

The Supreme Court these days is generally in the business of helping executions go forward. But on Thursday night, the court did something notable: It told Alabama no. Even then, the court wasn't unanimous. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the refusal to let the nitrogen gas execution of Jeffery Lee proceed. What prompted the rare rejection? In line with the typical shadow docket practice, the court didn't explain itself. Nor did the dissenters, who merely noted their disagreement. But a deeper look at the case helps us understand why a majority of the court was unwilling to help the state this time.

Texas | Tanner Horner now incarcerated at the Polunsky Unit

Convicted child killer Tanner Horner has now taken up residence in one of the most brutal death row prisons after being sentenced to die by a Texas jury last month. Horner is incarcerated at the Polunsky Unit, an infamously restrictive prison outside Houston where the state's death row inmates are housed in an all-solitary confinement wing and spend at least 22 hours a day in their 60-square-foot cells. The former FedEx deliveryman, 34, was booked at the notorious prison on May 5 within hours of being sentenced for the gruesome murder of Athena Strand, 7, whom he admitted strangling while delivering a Christmas gift to her home in November 2022.

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