‘Abdicating its moral responsibility,’ US Supreme Court paves way for resumption in federal executions

SO MUCH FOR BEING PRO-LIFE
June 29, 2020 By Common Dreams


“The death penalty has no place in a just society,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass).

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for federal executions to resume following a 17-year pause. It denied to hear a challenge from death row prisoners over the Trump administration’s lethal injection protocol.

“At a moment when people around the country are demanding justice, equality, and accountability, clearing the way for federal executions is a mistake,” tweeted the ACLU.

The order (pdf) from the high court indicates that liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor would have heard the challenge.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr last year directed the Bureau of Prisons to resume capital punishment, with pentobarbital as the sole drug for the lethal injections.

The death penalty has no place in a just society.
Congress must act now and pass my bill to outlaw its use at the federal level and require re-sentencing of those currently on death row. https://t.co/Q5hODJUcWE
— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) June 29, 2020

Author and anti-death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean said court’s decision “means that the federal government will likely execute four people using an untested lethal injection protocol during a global pandemic without any real oversight from the Supreme Court. All of this is against the wishes of at least one victim’s family.”

.@TheJusticeDept says that it is pursuing justice for victims’ families by pushing to execute Danny Lee. That could not be further from the truth. The victims’ family is begging the government to NOT execute Danny Lee. The DOJ’s statements are not truthful. pic.twitter.com/se6SH8ZZl5

— Sister Helen Prejean (@helenprejean) June 29, 2020

Three federal executions are currently scheduled for July and one for August. All the state-sanctioned killings are scheduled to take place at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.

The high court’s decision doesn’t mark the end of the road for the inmates’ legal challenges, as they’re “separately asking a federal judge in Washington to impose a new delay on their executions over other legal issues that have yet to be resolved,” as the Associated Press reported.

The last federal execution took place in 2003. And, according to California Innocence Project director Justin Brooks, it should be the last.

“The Supreme Court must eventually rise above the fear driven politics in the USA and bring us in line with the rest of the civilized world when it comes to the #DeathPenalty,” Brooks tweeted. “It is a human rights violation.”