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      in US Politics

      'Abolish the death penalty': Brandon Bernard execution prompts wave of anger

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      A wave of outrage from human rights group, activists, elected officials, and others over the execution Thursday night of federal prisoner Brandon Bernard continued to grow on Friday behind a coordinated call for the abolition of the death penalty.Bernard, 40, was executed by lethal injection at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, after the US supreme court rejected a last-minute appeal to stay the execution and Donald Trump did not publicly respond to calls for him to intervene.After 17 years without a federal execution, the Trump administration has executed nine inmates since July, and plans five more executions before Joe Biden takes office on 20 January. Biden has pledged to eliminate the death penalty.Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley, the sponsor of legislation in the House to end the federal death penalty, tweeted footage on Thursday night of Bernard speaking from prison. “Abolish the death penalty,” she wrote.That call was taken up by activists from Pressley’s progressive allies in Congress to Vanita Gupta, president of the leadership conference on civil and human rights.In a world of incredible violence, the state should not be involved in premeditated murder“Brandon Bernard should be alive today,” Vermont senator Bernie Sanders tweeted on Friday morning. “We must end all federal executions and abolish the death penalty. In a world of incredible violence, the state should not be involved in premeditated murder.”Sister Helen Prejean, an anti-death penalty advocate, said she had spoken with Bernard the day before he died. He “told us about everything he was grateful for in his life,” she said. “He died with dignity and love, in spite of the cruel, unjust system that condemned him to die as a result of egregious prosecutorial misconduct.”Prejean called the killing a “a stain on us all”.Bernard was sentenced for a role in the 1999 killings in Texas of an Iowa couple whose bodies he burned in the trunk of their car after they were shot by an accomplice, Christopher Vialva.He directed his last words to the family of Todd and Stacie Bagley, the couple he and Vialva were convicted of killing: “I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s the only words that I can say that completely capture how I feel now and how I felt that day.”He was pronounced dead at 9.27pm eastern time.“Brandon Bernard was 19 when he committed murder,” tweeted Julián Castro, the former housing secretary from Texas. “Since then, five jurors and a former prosecutor have said they don’t support the death penalty in his case. Brandon will be the ninth person executed by the federal government this year. We must end this horrible practice.”Advocates for Bernard included the reality show star Kim Kardashian West and others thought to have Trump’s ear, including two lawyers who defended Trump at his impeachment trial this year in the US Senate and who filed briefs in the supreme court appeal, Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth Starr.Todd Bagley’s mother, Georgia, spoke to reporters within 30 minutes of the execution, saying she wanted to thank Trump, the attorney general, William Barr and others at the justice department for bringing the family some closure. She became emotional when she spoke about the apologies from Bernard before he died and from Vialva, who was executed in September.“The apology and remorse … helped very much heal my heart,” she said, beginning to cry and then recomposing herself. “I can very much say: I forgive them.”In a statement when executions were resumed in July, Barr said the government “owed” it to victims to kill the convicts.“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,” Barr said.Alfred Bourgeois, a 56-year-old Louisiana truck driver, is set to die Friday for killing his two-year-old daughter. Bourgeois’ lawyers alleged he was intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. Several courts said evidence did not support that claim.The first series of federal executions over the summer were of white men, which critics said seemed calculated to make them less controversial amid summer protests over racial discrimination.Four of the five inmates set to die before Biden’s inauguration are Black men. The fifth is a white woman who would be the first female inmate executed by the federal government in nearly six decades. More

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      in Elections

      Donald Trump believes in clemency and mercy. But only for his friends and family | Jill Filipovic

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      Given that Donald Trump treats the office of the presidency like a personal branding tool, and deals with adversity like a two-bit mafioso, this moment was perhaps predictable: the president is reportedly considering pre-emptively pardoning three of his children, his son-in-law, and associates including Rudy Giuliani. He has already pardoned or commuted the sentences of several of his friends and associates, which should raise some eyebrows – why do so many people who surround this president wind up charged with a crime, in jail, or bracing themselves for criminal charges? And why is the supposedly law-and-order “pro-life” Republican party shrugging as this president excuses the criminality of his kin and his cronies while he refuses to intervene to save anyone from execution – and in fact, is using what little time he has left in office to reinstate barbaric practices like death by firing squad?We all know Trump didn’t drain the swamp. But in his last two months in office, he is sending a clear message about who and what he and his party value. It’s not Christian mercy, or hard-nosed law and order, or even the sanctity of life. It’s power, dominance and a thick line between two Americas: one connected, white, power-hungry and lawless, and the other at its mercy.As Trump’s term winds down, the White House is reportedly besieged with requests from lackeys and sycophants and hangers-on and D-list celebrities who all believe the president may grant them a get-out-of-jail-free card (or, in the case of his children and Giuliani, who have not been charged or convicted of any crimes, a get-out-of-ever-being-held-accountable card). Even the Tiger King has made his case to the president.Many expect that the president will issue a flurry of pardons and commutations, and this largesse will be bestowed much like the measly 11 pardons and commutations he’s issued so far: on people who worked for him, people who supported him, people could incriminate him and people who personally impress him (sometimes via reality television stars, because we are living in the worst of times).Trump has refused to use his powers for good, and has been appalling harsh on those who have been over-sentencedHe’s granted clemency almost entirely to his friends, advisers, supporters and loyalists, with a few war criminals and conservative cultural icons thrown in for good measure. The only people he has used his pardon power to help who fall outside that characterization are either famous but long-dead historical figures and Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving a life sentence for a non-violent drug offense – and whose case he only learned about because reality television star Kim Kardashian West brought it to his desk.What he largely hasn’t done is use the presidential clemency power for its highest purpose: to correct serious injustice and act with compassion.Despite touting himself as a president who has done more for criminal justice reform than any other, the opposite is actually true: Trump has refused to use his powers for good, and has been appalling harsh on those who have been over-sentenced. Several people on federal death row have appealed to the president for clemency – not to go home, just to not be killed by the state. So far, Trump has ignored them. The list of those who are still alive includes Brandon Bernard, who was just 18 when he joined a group of friends for what he thought was going to be a carjacking and a robbery; one of his friends ended up murdering the couple the group robbed, in a brutal act Bernard had not foreseen and was horrified by. At trial, Bernard’s lawyer, who had never argued a federal death penalty case before, barely mounted a defense and failed to call important witnesses. Several members of the jury that convicted him now say that he should not be executed. And there’s Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, who committed an awful crime – she murdered a pregnant woman and stole her baby – but also has a severe and debilitating mental illness, and, her lawyers say, was psychotic when she committed that heinous crime. More

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      in US Politics

      DoJ sets new dates to begin death-row executions following legal battle

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      Move likely to spark debate about criminal justice reform William Barr directs Bureau of Prisons to restart in mid-July Donald Trump has spoken often about capital punishment and his belief that executions serve as an effective deterrent. Photograph: Ben Margot/AP The justice department has set new dates to begin executing federal death-row inmates following a […] More