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Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The Donald Trump administration will carry out a series of federal executions in the run-up to the last seconds of the presidency. At least five executions will take place before the inauguration of the president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, in January 2021.
This violates the 130-year precedent, which halted executions in the middle of a presidential transition. If this happened, Trump would become America’s most executed president in 100 years, with 13 inmates.
Launching BBC International, executions will begin with Brandon Bernard, 40, and Alfred Bourgeois, 56. Both are scheduled to face death sentences in Terre Haute, Indiana Prison.
Bernard was charged with kidnapping and murdering married couple Todd and Stacie Bagley in 1999. Meanwhile, Bourgeois was guilty of shaving his 2-year-old son to death.
Meanwhile, Lisa Montgomery tortured a pregnant woman and kidnapped the girl’s baby in 2004. Cory Johnson killed seven people in Richmond, California and Dustin John Higgs kidnapped and killed three women in Washington in 1996.
Attorney General William Barr said his justice department was only enforcing existing laws. However, various criticisms arose.
“It is completely outside the norm, in a pretty extreme way,” Ngozi Ndulue, director of research for the US Independent Center for Information on the Death Penalty, said on Friday (11/12/2020).
The death penalty was reinstated by the United States Supreme Court in 1988. However, executions by the national or federal government in the United States remain rare.
Before Trump took office, only three federal executions were carried out. It was all done under Republican President George W. Bush and included inmate Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted of the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.
Since 2003, there have been no federal executions at all. The largest number of executions by the federal government occurred in 1896 with more than 10 prisoners, although a total of 22 were executed in the state.
But the trend is decreasing: more and more citizens want the abolition of the death penalty equally. Most of the residents have officially requested a ban on the practice of this punishment.
A Gallup poll from November 2019 found that 60% of Americans support life in prison. This is the first time since the survey began more than 30 years ago. “Public support for the death penalty is at its lowest point in decades,” said Ndulue Llagi.
This also raises criticism from National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NCAAP).
“We feel [hukuman mati] it is unconstitutional arbitrary punishment that should have been abolished decades ago, “said policy director Lisa Cylar Barrett.
Meanwhile, Biden himself vowed to abolish the death penalty in his campaign.
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