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WASHINGTON DC, KOMPAS.com– Convict Brandon Bernard was executed in the state of Indiana after his clemency appeal was rejected at the last minute by the United States Supreme Court.
Bernard was convicted of murder in 1999 when he was a teenager. He is also the youngest convict to be executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years.
This 40-year-old man has apologized to the families of the victims he killed before being executed by lethal injection on Thursday (10/12/2020).
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Another four death sentences are scheduled before the end of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Brandon Bernard has apologized to the families of the victims he killed, before being executed by lethal injection on Thursday (10/12/2020).If all these executions took place, Trump would be the president with the highest number of executions overseeing the execution of the death penalty in more than a century. Since July this year alone, 13 executions have been carried out.
This measure broke the 130-year precedent in which there was no execution of the death penalty during the presidential transition. Joe Biden will officially take office on January 20, 2021.
Trump rushes to execute before his term ends
As President Donald Trump’s days in the White House draw to a close, his administration is accelerating a series of executions by the federal government.
In addition to Bernard, who has already been executed, Alfred Bourgeois (56) is scheduled to be sentenced to death on Friday (11/12/2020) in a prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Attorney General William Barr has said the Justice Department is simply enforcing the law.
But opponents of the death penalty say the move is concerning because it comes weeks before Biden’s inauguration, who has revealed that he will end the death penalty.
Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department was only applying applicable penalties related to executions.“This is completely out of the norm, in a pretty extreme way,” said Ngozi Ndulue, director of research for the independent Death Penalty Information Center.
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What is the death penalty policy like in the United States??
Since the Supreme Court of the United States (USA) reinstated the federal death penalty in 1988, executions by the central government have been rare.
Before Trump took office, only three federal death sentences were administered during that period.
It was all done under Republican President George W. Bush, including Timothy McVeigh, convicted of the bomb attack on a federal building in Oklahoma City. Since 2003 there have been no federal executions at all.
Most of the federal executions were carried out at the Terre Haute Federal Correctional Complex, Indiana.States in the United States still apply the death penalty in state prisons.
States executed a total of 22 convicts last year, but the death penalty at the state level is trending downward.
An increasing number of states are abolishing the death penalty, and most states have officially banned the practice or have not implemented the death penalty in more than a decade.
Public opinion has also changed regarding this death sentence.
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A November 2019 Gallup poll showed that 60 percent of Americans are in favor of life in prison on the death penalty for the first time since a poll was conducted more than 30 years ago.
“Public support for the death penalty is at its lowest point in this decade,” explained Ndulue.
What is the government doing Triumph?
In July 2019, Barr announced plans for the execution of five death row inmates, despite public opposition and prevailing practice.
“Congress has clearly approved the death penalty,” he said at the time.
“The Justice Department enforces the law, and for the sake of the victims and their families, we implement the verdicts imposed by our judicial system.”
He said the prisoners were found guilty of murdering or raping children and the elderly.
US Attorney General William Barr (left) and US President Donald Trump (right).But Democrats and human rights organizations fiercely opposed the move.
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“We view the death penalty as an arbitrary sentence that violates a constitution that should have been abolished decades ago,” said Lisa Cylar Barrett, policy director for the NCAAP Legal Defense Fund.
And the choice of certain death row inmates has exacerbated accusations that the decision was based on political interests.
The executions of the first group in the middle of this year, coinciding with a wave of anti-racist protests, consisted of all white people. For the current batch, four of the five planned to run will be African American.
According to Ndulue, it would not be a “coincidence” that no black convict was sentenced to death during the period of “heightened awareness of racial inequality associated with the federal death penalty.”
What is happening now?
If the death sentences of Brandon Bernard and Alfred Bourgeois were carried out, the 10 convicts executed during 2020 would be an unmatched number of people a year.
“We have to go back to 1896, when there were 10 or more executions,” explained Ngozi Ndulue of the independent Death Penalty Information Center.
The Trump administration also stipulated the implementation of a federal death sentence amid a period of political transition, after losing the presidential election.
This temporary execution occurred for the first time in more than a century.
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The incumbent president generally postpones executions to be handled by his successors, so that the president-elect can determine the direction of policy.
In an interview with a news agency Associated PressAttorney General William Barr defended post-presidential executions, saying he would likely schedule more executions before leaving the US Department of Justice.
“I think the way to stop the death penalty is to abolish the death penalty,” he said.
“But if we ask the jury to remove it, then that execution must take place.”
But this is a controversial choice, particularly as President-elect Joe Biden’s team has said it will seek to abolish the death penalty.
Bernard’s first planned execution attracted special attention.
Bernard, convicted of murder and kidnapping in 1999, was 18 years old when he committed the crime and will be listed as the youngest convict the federal government has executed in nearly 70 years.
Five of the nine jurors who handled his case are still alive and the US attorneys defending the death sentence on appeal have publicly called for Bernard’s execution to be dropped.
Kim Kardashian expressed it as well, appealing directly to President Trump via Twitter.
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The convict who has been and will be executed
- Brandon bernard convicted in 1999 of the kidnapping and murder of two youth ministers, Todd and Stacie Bagley. He was executed on Thursday, December 10, 2020.
- Alfred Bourgeois on the list of those sentenced to death for torturing and beating his two-year-old daughter to death. He is scheduled to be executed on December 11.
- Lisa montgomery He strangled a pregnant woman in Missouri before severing the pregnant woman’s stomach and abducting the baby in 2004. His execution is scheduled for January 12, 2021.
- Cory Johnson convicted of murdering seven people linked to Johnson’s involvement in drug trafficking in Richmond, Virginia. He’s on the execution list for January 14, 2021.
- Dustin John Higgs convicted in 1996 of the kidnapping and murder of three young women in Washington DC. Higgs did not kill them outright, but instead ordered the murder carried out by another convict, Willis Haynes. The plan is for the Higgs to run on January 15, 2021.
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