Trump Is On A Death Row Killing Spree: Bill Barr Now Wants To Bring Back Firing Squads

Donald Trump is poised to set a grim record for over­see­ing the most exe­cu­tions dur­ing a pres­i­den­tial transition.

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion is rush­ing to exe­cute an unprece­dent­ed num­ber of peo­ple before President-elect Joe Biden, an oppo­nent of the death penal­ty, takes office on January 20.
Unless he grants requests for com­mu­ta­tions, President Trump will leave office hav­ing set a grim record for over­see­ing the most exe­cu­tions of fed­er­al pris­on­ers dur­ing a pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tion peri­od in U.S. his­to­ry, accord­ing to the Death Penalty Information Center. The Trump admin­is­tra­tion has already exe­cut­ed eight peo­ple by lethal injec­tion since July, when the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment resumed exe­cu­tions after a 17-year hiatus.

On Friday, one day after car­ry­ing out the first fed­er­al exe­cu­tion under a “lame duck” pres­i­dent in 131 years, the Department of Justice announced its inten­tion to exe­cute three more peo­ple incar­cer­at­ed at the Terre Haute fed­er­al prison in Indiana. This brings the total num­ber of peo­ple sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed before Trump leaves office to five, includ­ing Lisa Montgomery, a sur­vivor of extreme sex­u­al vio­lence who suf­fers from men­tal ill­ness and would be the first woman to be exe­cut­ed on the fed­er­al lev­el in near­ly six decades.
“We’re real­ly in the mid­dle of an unprece­dent­ed exe­cu­tion spree,” said Allison Cohen, a spokesper­son for the anti-death penal­ty group Death Penalty Action, in an interview.
The last time a fed­er­al exe­cu­tion was car­ried out under a “lame duck” pres­i­dent was in 1889, after President Grover Cleveland lost his first bid at reelec­tion, the Death Penalty Information Center reports. The sev­en exe­cu­tions car­ried out by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion in the four-month peri­od lead­ing up to the November elec­tions out­num­ber those car­ried out by any pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tion over the past 78 years. At the same time, states are on pace to per­form the fewest num­ber of exe­cu­tions in near­ly four decades.

Cohen said the fed­er­al exe­cu­tions already car­ried out since July “line up per­fect­ly” with the cam­paign sea­son, allow­ing the Trump cam­paign to boast about the pres­i­den­t’s sup­posed “law and order” cre­den­tials. A reg­u­la­tion pro­posed by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion on Wednesday would allow the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to exe­cute peo­ple by meth­ods besides lethal injec­tion — includ­ing by fir­ing squad, accord­ing to Death Penalty Action.
“From what we can tell, this has been just anoth­er way for Trump to break a record and have some­thing to email his fol­low­ers,” Cohen said.
While a major­i­ty of Americans pre­fer life sen­tences in prison to the death penal­ty, 58 per­cent of Republicans still sup­port killing incar­cer­at­ed peo­ple, accord­ing to a 2019 Gallup poll. Meanwhile, a grow­ing num­ber of advo­cates are push­ing for an end to both the death penal­ty and life-with­out-parole sen­tences, which they call “death by incarceration.”

Biden has said he oppos­es the death penal­ty and will work to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment on the fed­er­al lev­el, as well as pro­vide incen­tives for the 28 states that still allow the death penal­ty to change their laws, accord­ing to Cohen. The Trump admin­is­tra­tion, Cohen said, appears to be push­ing to exe­cute peo­ple before Biden has a chance to reverse deci­sions made by the Department of Justice or grant them com­mu­ta­tions — which would spare the pris­on­ers’ lives, but would not absolve them of guilt or free them from prison.
Of all the cur­rent death row cas­es, Montgomery’s has gained the most atten­tion as she is the first woman to face a fed­er­al exe­cu­tion in decades. Before her incar­cer­a­tion, Montgomery was trau­ma­tized by years of hor­rif­ic sex­u­al vio­lence and abuse and devel­oped severe men­tal ill­ness­es, includ­ing bipo­lar dis­or­der with psy­chot­ic fea­tures and post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, accord­ing to advo­cates and her sis­ter, Diane Mattingly.

Read the remain­der of the sto­ry here: https://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​2​0​/​1​1​/​2​7​/​t​r​u​m​p​-​i​s​-​o​n​-​a​-​d​e​a​t​h​-​r​o​w​-​k​i​l​l​i​n​g​-​s​p​r​e​e​-​b​i​l​l​-​b​a​r​r​-​n​o​w​-​w​a​n​t​s​-​t​o​-​b​r​i​n​g​-​b​a​c​k​-​f​i​r​i​n​g​-​s​q​u​a​d​s​_​p​a​r​t​n​er/