By Aaron Miller-
Critics have lambasted the U.S government’s resumption of the death penalty after the Ministry Of Justice announced plans to put to death three defendants since restoring the federal death penalty in 1988, the most recent of which occurred in 2003, when Louis Jones was executed for the 1995 kidnapping, rape and murder of a young female soldier. There are about 60 people on federal death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
Thirty US states currently allow capital punishment but, in four of those states have seen their governors issue moratoriums on the death penalty, according to the DPIC. Twenty states have abolished the controversial law, with New Hampshire, the latest U.S state to abolish the death penalty in May.
The move to execute federal death row inmates has been condemned by opponents of the death penalty. Senator Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor now running for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president, tweeted: “Let me be clear: capital punishment is immoral and deeply flawed. Too many innocent people have been put to death. We need a national moratorium on the death penalty, not a resurrection.”
Another future White House contender, Senator Cory Booker, said the move was typical of Barr’s resistance to criminal justice reform. “Throughout our nation’s history we have seen how the death penalty is not only ineffective and immoral, but also fraught with biases against people of colour, low-income individuals, and those with mental illness. It is a waste of taxpayer dollars and does nothing to improve public safety.
“Instead, capital punishment seeks to satisfy a desire for vengeance and retribution. Our government must represent the best of who we are, not the worst. We can, and should, do better.
Attorney General William Barr confirmed in a statement his instructions to the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to schedule the executions of five inmates, after 16 years without one. Mr Barr stated that the five had been convicted of murders or rapes of children or the elderly. The executions have been scheduled for December 2019 and January 2020.
The murderers on death row include Daniel Lewis Lee, a member of a white supremacist group, who murdered a family of three, including an eight-year-old girl; Lezmond Mitchell, who killed a 63-year-old woman and her nine-year-old granddaughter; Wesley Ira Purkey, who raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl and killed an 80-year-old woman who suffered from polio; Alfred Bourgeois, who sexually molested and beat to death his two-year-old daughter; and Dustin Lee Honken, who shot and killed five people including two children.
The above criminals are vicious murderers who will attract minimal sympathy,but the concern is for the many other errors critics fear take place and expose innocent people to death row.Barr said the government was moving to seek justice against the “worst criminals” and bring relief to victims and family members. In a statement to the press, mr. Barr said:
“Under administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought the death penalty against the worst criminals,” Mr 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.”