Trump's last days in office marred by disregard for human life. Death penalty just another example.

Trump reinstated federal executions after nearly 20 years, with two slated for this week. When will the U.S. drop the practice and join other Western nations?

If there's one thing that has defined the final days of the Trump administration, it's the lack of regard for human life. We saw that play out Wednesday after President Donald Trump incited rioters to bust through the U.S. Capitol and hunt down members of Congress.

Inciting a violent assault on the Capitol also displayed a disregard for democracy and the rule of law. This was the tragic finale of four years of failed federal leadership, and far from the only instance where the president’s disdain for human life has been demonstrated.

His abject failure to provide the leadership necessary to deal effectively with the COVID-19 pandemic is beyond dispute, with the consequence being that the daily death count from COVID-19 has now surpassed that of 9/11.

In the face of these unfolding tragedies, and at a time when the Trump administration appears literally to be coming unglued as more rats leave the sinking ship to avoid association with Wednesday's debacle, another systematic disregard for human life seems to be rolling along on virtual autopilot.

Months ago, before former Attorney General William Barr made his own quick exit in a futile effort to save his reputation, he led the repeal of the de facto moratorium on federal executions. That has begun a process of periodic, deliberate killings inflicted by the government itself — indeed, by a lame-duck government that, after Wednesday, seems even to lack the consciousness or capacity to know what it is doing.

After 17 years without a single federal execution, the Trump administration has overseen 10 since July.

In 2020, for the first time in U.S. history, the federal government executed more people — in just six months — than all of the states combined. And this week alone, three people are scheduled to be put to death, despite ongoing legal challenges, including the first woman to face federal execution in nearly 70 years.

Unsurprisingly, these actions have furthered the already dangerous spread of the coronavirus in prisons. Eight members of the federal Bureau of Prisons team involved in the execution of Orlando Hall in November at the federal correctional facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, subsequently tested positive for COVID-19. The facility is experiencing an outbreak with hundreds of reported cases among individuals who are incarcerated.

Among those who have contracted COVID-19 are the two men scheduled to be put to death by the federal government this week, Cory Johnson and Dustin Higgs.

This administration’s lack of regard for human life is tragic and leaves the United States largely alone in the world. America was one of only 20 countries and the only advanced Western democracy to use the death penalty in 2019. Its application is riddled with racial bias. These decisions are also not error free.

Since 1973, at least 173 people on death row have been exonerated, while the National Academy of Sciences estimates that 4% of death row prisoners are innocent. This is a staggering rate of injustice for a sentence that is irreversible once administered.

The COVID-19 pandemic has only magnified concerns with our country’s use of the death penalty, making it impossible for many attorneys to effectively represent their clients, investigate last-minute leads, personally meet and discuss legal strategies or see their clients during critical final days.

A growing number of elected reform-minded prosecutors recognize the inhumanity and bias of the American death penalty and have committed to ending capital punishment. And in December, nearly 100 current and former criminal justice leaders issued a statement calling on the Trump administration to halt federal executions and commute the sentences of those on death row to life without parole. These prosecutors and law enforcement leaders recognize that “we have not executed the worst of the worst, but often instead put to death the unluckiest of the unlucky — the impoverished, the poorly represented, and the most broken.”

These observations are evident when one examines the individuals scheduled to be executed this week. Lisa Montgomery, who was set to be killed Tuesday, has a well-documented history of experiencing severe and incessant physical, emotional and sexual abuse from a very young age. Medical professionals have assessed that what she experienced amounted to years of torture. Late Monday, a judge granted a stay in the execution, citing the need to determine Montgomery’s mental competence, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported.

Similarly, Cory Johnson — scheduled to be executed Thursday — experienced extensive trauma and violence in his childhood, and his lawyers have pointed to his intellectual disability, never shared in court by his trial lawyers.

And Dustin Higgs — whose execution is scheduled for Friday — didn’t pull in the trigger in the murders for which he was convicted. The actual shooter wasn't sentenced to death.

While they should be — and will be — held accountable for the heinous crimes they committed, taking their lives would say more about us as a society than it would about them. The death penalty represents the worst of us — revenge and cruelty — and does nothing to deter crime or make our communities safer. It is long past time to abolish capital punishment, once and for all. And Americans as well as states are increasingly embracing this reform and aligning with other Western democracies.

Let’s hope the Trump administration seizes this last chance to define its final days, at least as it relates to the death penalty, by the values of humanity, mercy and compassion, rather than base vengeance. We must restore our image in the eyes of world, not further tarnish it.

Source: usatoday.com, Opinion: Donald Ayer, Deborah Gonzalez, Miriam Aroni Krinsky, January 11, 2021. Donald Ayer served as a U.S. attorney and principal deputy solicitor general in the Reagan administration and as deputy attorney general under President George H.W. Bush. Deborah Gonzalez is the district attorney for Georgia's Western Circuit. Miriam Aroni Krinsky is the executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution and a former federal prosecutor.

🚩 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

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

California | Becerra vows to extend moratorium despite past support for capital punishment

SACRAMENTO—Democrat Xavier Becerra defended the death penalty while serving as California’s attorney general, a punishment his office actively sought in the case of a gunman convicted of an Orange County mass shooting, but as the front-running candidate for governor, he has vowed to block executions if elected in November. Becerra said he will extend the blanket reprieve for all death row inmates that Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted by executive order in 2019, saying he supported “moving our state away from a costly, flawed system that disproportionately impacts Black and brown communities and too often gets it wrong.”

Iran | Afghan Citizen Executed in Wheelchair Due to Severe Mobility Disability

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Iranian authorities have reportedly executed an Afghan citizen, identified as Valijan Nourzay, at the central prison in Rafsanjan, according to the human rights organization Hengaw. Hengaw said in a statement on Sunday, September 6, that Nourzay was executed early Wednesday last week at Rafsanjan Central Prison. According to the organization, Nourzay had a severe mobility disability and was executed while in a wheelchair. Hengaw, citing informed sources, reported that Nourzay had been pursued by Iranian authorities three years ago over an alleged murder. He was reportedly seriously wounded after Iranian security forces opened fire on him in Rafsanjan before being arrested and later sentenced to death.

Egypt TV presenter and 11 others sentenced to death in major drugs case

Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa and 11 others have been sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of drug trafficking and rape, while nine defendants received life sentences and seven were acquitted. Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa, 39, has been sentenced to death by hanging along with 11 other defendants after being found guilty in a drugs case involving a criminal gang accused of importing ingredients used to manufacture narcotics for sale.

He Spent 27 Years on Death Row as a Wrongfully Convicted Man. What Comes Next?

23-hour solitary confinement. 115-degree heat. Jimmie Duncan is haunted by the decades he spent in Louisiana’s Angola Prison—and how, even after being released, he still isn’t truly free. Jimmie “Chris” Duncan wiped the sweat off his forehead as he assessed his temporary home from the parking lot of a rundown motel in central Louisiana. Sure, there’s drug dealing and prostitution, he said on a recent summer afternoon. And he suspected his neighbors were cooking meth on a floor below the room he paid $350 a week to rent.

California | He spent 19 years on death row. His conversion to Judaism helped him endure

Johnny Morales struggled to find sleep. He dozed off for a few moments, but officers came to his death row cell and woke him a little after midnight. They needed to inventory and box up his belongings. He was leaving San Quentin. Hands cuffed behind his back, he walked across the empty upper yard in the dim gray hours before daylight. An officer walked alongside him step for step, black latex-gloved fingers holding onto Morales’s arm. For almost 20 years, Morales could only experience the world outside his 4-by-11 foot cell in the condemned housing unit like this—chained and escorted by officers. Security protocols required all death row residents be handcuffed or shackled any time they were out in open space with staff.

Ex-corrections officials urge governor to commute Kansas death sentences

Former Kansas corrections officials are urging Governor Laura Kelly to grant clemency to the state's death row inmates. Former Kansas Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz has several reasons why he thinks the state should abolish the death penalty. Werholtz, who served as secretary from 2002 to 2010 and returned on an interim basis in 2019, uses his discussions with peers and family members of victims as well as experiences of seeing wrongly convicted people getting exonerated as his guiding points.

Florida executes Harold Gene Lucas

Florida state officials executed 74-year-old Harold Gene Lucas by lethal injection on Tuesday evening, concluding a 50-year legal saga stemming from the 1976 murder of a 16-year-old girl in Bonita Springs. STARKE, Fla. -- A man convicted of killing a teenage girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends was put to death Tuesday in the first of three executions planned this month in Florida. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, authorities said. He was sentenced to death for the 1976 shooting attack on Jill Piper and the wounding of her friends, Richard Byrd Jr. and Terri Rice.

Florida set to carry out 14th execution this year in the nation's busiest death chamber

MIAMI (AP) — A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends is set to be executed Tuesday in the first of three lethal injections scheduled this month in the state. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is set to receive a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke starting at 6 p.m. He would be the 14th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has already signed death warrants for two more executions set for later this September.

Arizona AG seeks execution date for man convicted in 1995 trooper killing

Trooper Bob Martin was killed during a traffic stop on the Beeline highway; execution for his killer could be as soon as January PHOENIX (AZFamily)—The Arizona Attorney General is asking for an execution date to be set for a man convicted in the killing of an Arizona State Trooper over 30 years ago. On Aug. 15, 1995, Trooper Bob Martin was shot and killed while performing a traffic stop along the Beeline Highway.

Hanging, confinement and the sentencing debate India won’t have

Ask anybody what a “death sentence” in India actually means, and the honest answer is that it can mean three quite different things. It can mean the noose—hanging by the neck until death; it can mean permanent confinement in jail—a term the courts now call imprisonment for the remainder of one’s natural life, and, far more often than either of the first two, it can simply mean delay in delivery of justice—a death sentence that is neither carried out nor commuted, waiting for completion of investigation, trial before the sessions court, hearing of a confirmation proceeding in a high court, appeal against conviction in the Supreme Court, or hearing of a mercy petition nobody has decided for years, sometimes for decades, until age or illness does what the state never got around to doing itself.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog