Five face execution in Trump s last six weeks
Four men and one woman convicted under USA federal law face execution in the last six weeks of the Trump presidency. The USA federal authorities resumed executions after 17 years and have been pursuing an unprecedented number of lethal injections, bucking national and global trends towards abolition. The cases of those selected for execution have been affected by arbitrariness, ineffective legal representation, racial bias, and have involved people with severe mental and intellectual disabilities, in violation of international law and standards. We urge the USA Attorney General to halt all executions and review the broken USA death penalty system. TAKE ACTION
Sara Weinberger: Shining a light on the federal government’s killing spree
Published: 12/21/2020 12:52:32 PM
In June, Attorney General William Barr ordered the resumption of federal executions. Like a kid let loose in a candy store, Barr wasted no time.
On July 14, Daniel Lee Lewis, according to his lawyer, spent the last four hours of his life strapped to a gurney, waiting for the Supreme Court to decide his fate. On July 13, a federal judge had delayed his execution on the grounds that the constitutionality of Barr’s procedure for lethal injections had not been fully litigated. The Justice Department immediately appealed to the Supreme Court. Ultimately, Lewis was executed shortly after the court, in a 5-4 ruling, paved the way for 10 people to be executed by the federal government by year’s end.