[Peace-discuss] Intent to Execute

[Szoke, Ron]

Trump pushing through dozens of last minute policy changes – including use of firing squads
Alex Woodward
Independent,  Wed, November 25, 2020 

Donald Trump has sought fast-track authorisation for several administration-wide policy changes before he leaves the White House in January, including the use of firing squads and electrocutions in federal executions, according to a report from ProPublica.

The Department of Justice entered a proposed rule change into the federal register in August. It cleared a White House review earlier this month, and the president could authorise the policy before he leaves office.

Federal executions are typically carried about by lethal injection, unless a judge orders a person to death by other means.

According to the proposed rule change, the administration claims that “death by firing squad and death by electrocution do not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment”.

The proposal argues: “In recent US Supreme Court litigation involving Eighth Amendment challenges to execution by lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia and firing squad have been identified as potential alternative methods of execution, including by prisoners themselves, that might – or even must– be used instead of lethal injection, in particular because those methods allegedly carry a lesser risk of pain."

It’s unlikely that the rule could be put into practise – president-elect Joe Biden does not support the death penalty and has signalled that he could seek to eliminate capital punishment for felony convictions and suspend federal executions, which Attorney General William Barr aggressively pursued after he was sworn in last year.

Federal executions resumed for the first time in 17 years in July, following a divided Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for their return. Daniel Lee was killed in Indiana following a conviction for the murder of a family of three in Arkansas in 1996. The Associated Press reporter present for his killing said his last words were "you’re killing an innocent man."

Orlando Cordia Hall was executed on 19 November. In the remaining weeks of the Trump administration, the federal government will kill five more people – Brandon Bernard, Alfred Bourgeois, Dustin Higgins, Corey Johnson and Lisa Montgomery, who will be the first female federal inmate to be executed in decades.

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