Attorney General Bill Barr Orders Reinstatement of Federal Death Penalty, Schedules 5 Executions

Attorney General William Barr ordered the federal death penalty to be reinstated after a 16-year suspension.

NBC News reports: “Barr also directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to schedule the executions of five death-row inmates convicted of murder, the Justice Department said in a news release. The executions are slated to take place in December 2019 and January 2020.”

CNBC reports: ‘The last federal execution was carried out in 2003. There are 62 individuals on federal death row, according to a tracker maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center. The Supreme Court outlawed state and federal death penalty laws in the 1972 decision Furman v. Georgia. The decision invalidated the laws then on the books, but did not outlaw the death penalty under all circumstances, leading states and the federal government to draft new legislation. The federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, and expanded by Congress in 1994. No federal executions took place, however, until 2001, according to to the Bureau of Prisons website.’

This morning, the Department of Justice announced they would resume capital punishment. 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.

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 25, 2019

There’s enough violence in the world. The government shouldn’t add to it. When I am president, we will abolish the death penalty. https://t.co/otUrgpYQWK

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 25, 2019