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But that does not mean that no one has been executed in the country in all this time. Only in last year, 19 executions They happened in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a US civil organization that maintains open data on convictions.
However, these 19 executions were carried out throughout the state. In the United States, there are federal and state laws that establish the death penalty. There are at least 30 different standards for capital punishment in the country.
- There are 28 state laws: one for each state that authorizes that kind of penalty;
- One according to which the the federal government has the power to intervene and execute prisoners in any of the 50 states;
- And one of military court that he can sentence and execute his convicts.
“Most of the punishments in the United States take place at the state level,” he told the G1 Scott Phillip, professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Denver. “The United States has not carried out federal executions in the last 17 years because there was no political motivation for that to happen.”
Federal punishments are followed by the attorney general of the country, with the appointment of the president of the United States.
Phillip states that although this is difficult to prove, the timing of the return seems to suggest that he [Trump] it’s after the votes. “
“Trump is competing with a platform of law and order,” explains the sociologist. . ”
Trump speaks on the last night of the Republican National Convention – Photo: Evan Vucci / AP
The researcher reinforces, however, that this type of political tactic is not exclusive to the Republican government. Phillip remembers that during the 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton – then Governor of Arkansas and Democratic candidate for the White House – returned to his state to see an execution.
HE convicted was Ricky Rector, man accused of killing a person inside a restaurant and shooting policemen during the surrender negotiation. Before being arrested, he tried to kill himself. His conviction was quite controversial, because it was noted possibility of mental disorders, which would cancel the execution.
“American prisoners are given one last meal and he reportedly told the police to save their dessert for later, which might suggest that [Rector] I didn’t fully understand that he was about to die, ”explained the criminology professor.
Clinton won the 1992 elections, with 370 votes in the electoral colleges and 43% of the popular vote.
Those who killed are sentenced to death in the United States, but each state has its own criteria. They are usually linked to violent murders, children or police. Terrorist acts resulting in death they can also be sentenced to the maximum penalty.
If the federal government understands that the state has not applied the correct sanction, you can override this decision both in states where the death penalty is envisaged and in states where there is no such punishment.
This was the case with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of those convicted of the 2013 Boston attack. Although the state of Massachusetts does not authorize the death penalty, it was convicted at the federal level., but the decision was withdrawn after an appeal was approved.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted of the attack during the Boston Marathon in 2013 – Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation / AP
The Trump administration, a champion of the death penalty for serious crimes, has carried out more federal executions than in the previous 57 years. In just two months, between July and August, the United States federal government executed 5 of his convicts to dead.
Lezmond Mitchell, arrested in 2001 after killing a 9-year-old boy and his grandmother – Photo: Auska Mitchell / Personal Archive / AP
Mitchell’s death was the first in the country’s recent history in which a Native American was convicted and executed by federal justice, regardless of the tradition of the Navajo people. An American law gives traditional peoples the right to decide whether to accept capital punishment or not.
“The country is very divided on the issue of the death penalty,” Phillip explained. “There were those who opposed it because of the Navajo roots of both the convict and the victims, but people cared more about the gravity of the crime than their circumstances.”
Scott Phillip is one of the authors of the study “Who Kills the State”, published on August 22 by the magazine “Harvard Civil Rights – Civil Liberties Law Review”. In the article signed with Professor Justin Marceau, sociologists reveal that convicted of killing white people are less likely to get rid of the death penalty.
The post takes place amid the debate over police violence and racism in the United States. The country has been experiencing a wave of protests since George Floyd’s death in May. The acts gained new momentum recently after police officers shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back.
The slogan ‘Black Lives Matter’ is painted in front of the Trump Tower, on Fifth Avenue in New York, on Thursday (9) – Photo: Mark Lennihan / AP
“We can see that the death of a white person is treated as a more serious crime because the government is more willing to send the murderer to his death,” Phillip explained. The study was based on conviction records in the state of Georgia, where the death penalty is authorized.
Research has shown that 22 of the 972 sentenced to death in that state for killing a white person were executedWhile of the more than 1,500 convicted of killing blacks, only two executions were carried out.
