41st Execution Under Biden: President Pledged End Of Death Penalty But Has Made Little Progress On Issue

President Joe Biden’s promise to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level and work to end capital punishment in states seems to have gone dormant as the Department of Justice continues to press for the death penalty in certain cases and Biden—the first president to openly oppose the execution of prisoners—stays quiet on the issue as they continue in states.

Biden pledged to push for the death penalty’s elimination on the campaign trail in 2020 and did order a moratorium on carrying out federal death sentences, but since then his administration has been largely silent on the matter.

The nonpartisan Death Policy Information Center says there are 43 federal death row prisoners with sentences dating back as far as 1997, with the most recent death row inmate, Brandon Council of South Carolina, sentenced in 2019.

While no defendants have been sentenced to death since the start of the Biden administration, the Department of Justice has sought to uphold death sentences in previously prosecuted cases including those of church shooter Dylann Roof, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Rejon Taylor, sentenced in 2008 for killing a restaurant owner.

A federal jury in Pennsylvania earlier this month found Robert Bowers, convicted of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, eligible for the death penalty and is considering whether to recommend it, a process that could last several weeks, CNN reported.

Advocates have called on Biden to commute federal death penalties and abolish the capital punishment system, the New York Times reported, which would require Congress to pass legislation.

Earlier this month, Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), with Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), reintroduced the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act of 2023 that would stop judges from imposing federal death sentences and require re-sentencing of those currently on death row.

The White House in January told the Associated Press that "the DOJ makes decisions about prosecutions independently."

There have been no federal executions under the Biden administration, but 41 people have been put to death in seven states since he took office.

White House representatives did not immediately respond to request for comment Friday.

NEWS PEG

Alabama executed its first prisoner in a year early Friday morning when convicted murderer James Barber, 64, died by lethal injection. Barber told NBC he had "no fear of death," but did worry about the lethal injection after Alabama was forced to stop three executions due to challenges finding a vein through which to administer lethal drugs. Barber’s attorneys appealed to the Supreme Court Thursday night to halt the execution, but the Court denied the request, with three liberal judges accusing Alabama of using Barber as a "guinea pig.” Barber was not a federal inmate.

KEY BACKGROUND

The death penalty in the United States dates back to the first establishment of the colonies. The Massachusetts Bay Colony held its first execution in 1630. The state of Massachusetts has since abolished the practice. Death sentences peaked in the mid 1990s, when more than 300 people were sentenced to death row per year, and have since sharply declined, the Death Penalty Information Center says. Lethal injection was first used in 1982, when Charles Brooks was given a lethal dose of sodium thiopental via an intravenous line in Texas. Between December 7, 1982 and the practice's 40th anniversary last year, the federal government has killed 1,377 prisoners using some version of the method, the nonprofit says. The Pew Research Center most recently in 2021 conducted a poll on how Americans feel about capital punishment—60% of U.S. adults favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder while 78% admit there is some risk that an innocent person will be put to death.

BIG NUMBER

13. President Donald Trump in 2020 allowed federal executions to go forward for the first time in 17 years. Thirteen people were put to death during his last six months as president, more than any other single president has overseen in more than 120 years, according to AP.

TANGENT

There are 27 states that still allow the death penalty to be imposed in certain cases, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, three of which have governors who have imposed moratoriums on executing inmates—California, Pennsylvania and Oregon. Arizona and Ohio's governors have paused the death penalty while the state systems are reviewed. Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs said there will be no executions until there is "confidence that the state is not violating the law," and Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said the state will no longer use lethal injection, pausing execution until lawmakers choose a different method of capital punishment, per AP.

Source: Forbes, Mary Whitfill Roeloffs, July 21, 2023

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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

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Two Executions In Six Hours: Florida Set For Historical Double Execution Tuesday

Florida is preparing to execute two death row inmates on Tuesday, July 28, in an action that would mark the state’s first double execution in more than 60 years. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12 p.m., followed six hours later by 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone at 6 p.m. If carried out, these will mark the 39th and 40th executions under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the 11th and 12th in the state since the beginning of 2026. In response, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) has launched petition and letter-writing efforts asking DeSantis to halt both procedures. The group has organized two public vigils outside Florida State Prison in Raiford, set for 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., contingent on whether stays are issued.

Florida executes Dominick Occhicone

Florida executes 2 men in a day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida's death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term. STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl.

Florida executes James Duckett

Double execution: 1st of 2 inmates is put to death in Florida Florida has executed James Duckett, a 68-year-old former cop convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987. The state is set to execute an 80-year-old man 6 hours later for a 1986 murder. Florida carried out the 1st double execution in more than 60 years, executing former police officer James Duckett and later scheduling the execution of 80‑year‑old Dominick Occhicone, amid Governor Ron DeSantis’s aggressive push to increase death penalties in the state. Florida has put to death the 1st of 2 inmates in the state's 1st double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

Iran erects iron gallows in Isfahan protest square

An iron gallows has been erected in an Isfahan square where protests erupted in January. Families of several of the 10 remaining prisoners sentenced to death have been summoned for farewell visits. An iron gallows erected in Ali-Khani Square in the central Iranian city of Isfahan has raised fears that the regime is preparing to publicly execute protesters arrested during nationwide demonstrations in January. Sources who spoke with Iran International said large numbers of security forces had been deployed in the area, while the families of several prisoners sentenced to death had been summoned to the prison for farewell visits.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

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