Federal Government to Resume Capital Punishment
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From the Right
AG Barr Reinstates Federal Death Penalty after 16-Year HiatusAttorney General William Barr has reinstated the death penalty for federal crimes following a 16-year moratorium, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.
Barr’s order includes instructions to schedule the executions of five inmates currently incarcerated on death row for murder.
“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,” 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...
From the Left
Here's Why Death Penalty Opponents Say Resuming Federal Executions Is the Wrong MoveThe Justice Department on Thursday said it would go back to executing federal death-row inmates for the first time in nearly two decades—a move capital punishment opponents quickly denounced as a step backward for criminal justice reform in the country.
“It’s distressing,” said Madeline Cohen, a capital defense attorney who represents three inmates on federal death row. “This administration has a history of taking rash actions, and this one is no exception.”
The federal government set execution dates as early as December for five convicted child murderers, including a man...
From the Left
Resumed federal executions raise death penalty's 2020 stakesThe question to Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988, was brutally personal.
“If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?” Bernard Shaw, a CNN anchor, asked, referring to the Massachusetts governor’s wife. Dukakis said he wouldn’t favor it because “I don’t see any evidence that it is a deterrent.”
The technocratic, largely emotionless response in a debate mere weeks before the election marked the nadir of Democrats’ politically agonized relationship to the death penalty — reinforcing in some voters’...
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