U.S. Justice Department resumes use of death penalty, schedules five executions

[webfact]

U.S. Justice Department resumes use of death penalty, schedules five executions

By Sarah N. Lynch

 

FILE PHOTO: Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump cheer as he floats the idea of using the death penalty against drug dealers during his remarks on the U.S. opioid crisis, at Manchester Community College in Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S., March 19, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst - RC1B110DF510/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday reinstated a two-decades-long dormant policy allowing the federal government's use of capital punishment and immediately scheduled the executions for five death row federal inmates.

 

"Congress has expressly authorized the death penalty through legislation adopted by the people’s representatives in both houses of Congress and signed by the President," Attorney General William Barr said in a statement. 

 

"The Justice Department upholds the rule of law - and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system."

 

The last federal execution took place in 2003. Since then, protracted litigation over the drugs historically used in lethal injection executions prevented the government from continuing the practice, according to Justice Department officials.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump has called for increasing the use of the death penalty for drug traffickers and mass shooters, a request the department has since laid the groundwork to carry out.

 

Early in the Trump administration, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to examine what steps might be required to resume the use of the death penalty, a Justice Department official said.

 

In March 2018, Sessions also called on federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty when bringing cases against drug dealers and traffickers as part of a strategy to help combat the opioid crisis.

 

Most recently in May, the department's Office of Legal Counsel took steps to make it easier for states to carry out executions by declaring that the Food and Drug Administration lacked the power to regulate lethal injection drugs.

 

The Senate Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, said Thursday's announcement was wrong.

 

"The federal government should be leading the effort to end this brutal and often cruel punishment, not advocating for its return. It’s time we evolve and put this terrible practice behind us," she said in a statement.

 

U.S. public support for the death penalty has declined since the 1990s, according to opinion polls, and all European Union nations have abolished it.

 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres believes the practice should not happen anywhere, spokesman Farhan Haq said.

 

"All the countries that continue to impose the death penalty on the population are flying in the face of what the U.N. believes is the principled position to end this sort of penalty once and for all," Haq told reporters.

 

There are also deep divisions on the U.S. Supreme Court over the death penalty and how it is implemented.

 

Some liberal justices have said that capital punishment as currently employed in the United States may run afoul of the Constitution's Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. They have also raised questions over lethal injection.

 

But the conservative-majority court, with two justices appointed by Trump, has given little indication of being willing to rule the death penalty unconstitutional.

 

FIVE EXECUTIONS

There are currently 62 federal inmates on death row, including Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who planted a deadly bomb at the Boston Marathon in 2013.

 

Of those 62, 41.9 percent are black, 43.6 percent are white, 11.3 percent are Latino, and Asians and Native Americans each make up 1.6 percent of the federal death row population, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre.

 

Nearly half of all federal death sentences are from Texas, Virginia and Missouri.

 

"We see really deep geographical and racial bias in the death penalty," said Cassandra Stubbs, director of the Capital Punishment Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, who added that the Justice Department's move to bring backexecutions is out of step with the views of most Americans.

 

The Justice Department said it has scheduled executions for five federal inmates who have been convicted of horrific murders and sex crimes, with more planned in the future.

 

All five will be executed by lethal injection using a single drug: pentobarbital.

 

Since 2010, 14 states have switched to using pentobarbital to carry out more than 200 executions, after they were unable to obtain the chemicals needed to execute people using a drug cocktail.

 

The federal inmates include Daniel Lewis Lee, a white supremacist who was convicted in Arkansas for murdering a family of three, including an 8-year-old girl.

 

Another is Lezmond Mitchell, a Native American who was found guilty by a jury in Arizona of stabbing a 63-year-old grandmother and forcing her young granddaughter to sit next to her lifeless body on a car journey before slitting the girl's throat.

 

The other three inmates who will be executed are Wesley Ira Purkey, who raped and murdered a teenaged girl; Alfred Bourgeois, who sexually molested and killed his young daughter; and Dustin Lee Honken, who shot and killed five people.

 

Lee will be the first one to be executed, with the date set for Dec. 9, 2019.

 

Morris Moon, an attorney for Lee, said in a statement that the trial judge, lead prosecutor and family members of the victims all oppose executing his client, and that unreliable and faulty evidence including hair later proven not to have come from Lee were used against him.

 

"Given the problems that undermine the fairness and reliability of Danny Lee’s conviction and death sentence, the Government should not move forward with his execution," Moon said.

 

The Justice Department said all five executions will take place at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

 

"Each of these inmates has exhausted their appellate and post-conviction remedies," the department added.

 

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; additional reporting by Michelle Nichols from the United Nations; editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Sonya Hepinstall and Jonathan Oatis)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-07-26

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[Tug]

In some cases I support this

[Chomper Higgot]

In the past few weeks we’ve been given an example of how the hyper wealthy avoid prosecution for heinous crimes.

 

The justice system is deeply flawed and heavily screwed against the poor and in favor of the wealthy.

 

An irreversible punishment on the bases of an always fallible and often corrupt justice system is morally and logically indefensible.

[ezzra]

There were times where death penalty was just that, death, and soon, somehow over the years the meaning was watered down considerably and appeals and re appeals have been dragging for years and sometimes decades so much so it become a drag bothe on the the system and on the convicvicted, if there is a death penalty on the books, use it as human and as quick as possible, otherwise, take it off the punishment books  complitly...

[Sujo]

1 minute ago, ezzra said:

There were times where death penalty was just that, death, and soon, somehow over the years the meaning was watered down considerably and appeals and re appeals have been dragging for years and sometimes decades so much so it become a drag bothe on the the system and on the convicvicted, if there is a death penalty on the books, use it as human and as quick as possible, otherwise, take it off the punishment books  complitly...

With something so final you would like to be sure all legal avenues are used before the state kills someone. Making it done faster will most likely have more mistakes, irreversable mistakes.

 

There has been too many people found to be wrongly convicted after years or decades in jail to think some should be put to death quickly.

[Tug]

17 minutes ago, Sujo said:

With something so final you would like to be sure all legal avenues are used before the state kills someone. Making it done faster will most likely have more mistakes, irreversable mistakes.

 

There has been too many people found to be wrongly convicted after years or decades in jail to think some should be put to death quickly.

Amen brother I’m for the death penalty in some instances but ample time must be allowed to be 1010%sure the person is guilty if that takes time so be it

[PremiumLane]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

Sessions also called on federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty when bringing cases against drug dealers and traffickers as part of a strategy to help combat the opioid crisis.

So the CEOs of large drug companies? Or, as always poor people will be put into the meat grinder while Trump's base howl with delight at the vapid, hollow victory over drugs

[johnnybangkok]

2 hours ago, ezzra said:

There were times where death penalty was just that, death, and soon, somehow over the years the meaning was watered down considerably and appeals and re appeals have been dragging for years and sometimes decades so much so it become a drag bothe on the the system and on the convicvicted, if there is a death penalty on the books, use it as human and as quick as possible, otherwise, take it off the punishment books  complitly...

The invention of DNA testing exonerated many, many people who would have been put to death otherwise. I do not believe in the death penalty (I don't think a state or country should kill it's own citizens and it's proven not to deter many of those that now face it) but if you are to have it then there should be a VERY lengthy appeals process in place to check for absolute sure you have the right person. 

[KKr]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

a strategy to help combat the opioid crisis.

didn't I read before that the root of this opioid crisis were prescription medicines, and that subsequently habitual users and victims of addiction were left with to little or no medication ?
Please correct me if I a wrong !!

[Rick1812]

Strap all five together.  One 50 caliber round through their chests. 

[marcusarelus]

2 minutes ago, Rick1812 said:

Strap all five together.  One 50 caliber round through their chests. 

 Kim Jong I have often wondered what your nick was on Thai Visa.

[Chomper Higgot]

10 minutes ago, Rick1812 said:

Strap all five together.  One 50 caliber round through their chests. 

That’s not the product of a healthy mind.

[Jingthing]

This is potentially troubling. Because it is coming from an administration that is labelling journalists as treasonous enemies of the people and also has shown admiration for authoritarian regimes that execute journalists and critics. Treason being a potential death penalty offense. So of course it's hard for most people to object to the death penalty for violent heinous criminals but it should give some pause that this change is happening now considering the current harsh political realities in the US.

 

First they came for ...

 

Sent from my Lenovo A7020a48 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

 

 

 

 

[lannarebirth]

All red meat, all the time.

[brewsterbudgen]

A shocking and blatantly political move.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[gunderhill]

Good  get  on  with  it,  too  many  years  wasted on these people who lets  be honest an un pc are usually pretty  no good  from day one, a drain on society, in an out of jail all their  lives bleeding the country dry.

[Sujo]

12 minutes ago, gunderhill said:

Good  get  on  with  it,  too  many  years  wasted on these people who lets  be honest an un pc are usually pretty  no good  from day one, a drain on society, in an out of jail all their  lives bleeding the country dry.

Not much good to be later found innocent if they are dead. I would rather they all do life in jail than have 1 person wrongly put to death.

[gunderhill]

6 minutes ago, Sujo said:

Not much good to be later found innocent if they are dead. I would rather they all do life in jail than have 1 person wrongly put to death.

Not everybody thinks  the same.

[Srikcir]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

The Justice Department upholds the rule of law

Says the man charged with criminal contempt of Congress.

 

[Sujo]

1 hour ago, gunderhill said:

Not everybody thinks  the same.

You may change your mind if you ste in that predicament.

[marcusarelus]

2 hours ago, Sujo said:

Not much good to be later found innocent if they are dead. I would rather they all do life in jail than have 1 person wrongly put to death.

I agree.  Does America really want to become as primitive and barbaric as Japan and Singapore? 

[ThaiBunny]

5 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

I agree.  Does America really want to become as primitive and barbaric as Japan and Singapore? 

Surely Trump is merely following the lead of his mentor, Vladimir Putin?

[JulesMad]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

U.S. Justice Department resumes use of death penalty, schedules five executions

Reading the headline, I thought for about 10 seconds that america finally would execute trumpy and 4 more idiots ????  Huge disappointment, just 5 'normal' criminals...

[Sujo]

1 hour ago, marcusarelus said:

I agree.  Does America really want to become as primitive and barbaric as Japan and Singapore? 

Yes. They are barbaric on the death penalty.

Like Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Saudi, North Korea. 

 

Trump is right at home with his mates.