Abolish the death penalty.
Happy Tuesday. Yesterday, ProPublica reported that the Justice Department is pushing ahead with plans for three executions this week – even though two of the prisoners have COVID-19 and multiple courts have objected to the government’s aggressive tactics. This email should go without saying, but I appreciate how Juan walks us through the history in today's newsletter.
Our work is made possible by our paid subscribers. You can financially contribute by making a one-time gift on our website or PayPal or subscribe for $7/month on Patreon. Thank you all for your support!
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
Sign the petition urging the Trump administration to stop federal executions scheduled for the remainder of its term.
Follow the Death Penalty Information Center for any information or changes related to the death penalty.
Urge your local representatives to abolish the death penalty.
Use this list from the Equal Justice initiative to find criminal justice organizations to support in your state.
GET EDUCATED
By Juan Michael Porter II (he/him)
The federal government was responsible for 10 of the 15 people who were executed under the death penalty last year, the largest number of state sanctioned murders ordered by an administration since 1896 (BBC, NYTimes).
The death penalty has been wielded as a cudgel to keep Black people subjugated for centuries, first as lynchings, before being codified as state-sanctioned murder.
According to Ngozi Ndulue, the Senior Director of Research and Special Projects for Death Penalty Information Center, “The death penalty has been used to enforce racial hierarchies throughout United States history, beginning with the colonial period and continuing to this day.”
In a report on the historical context of the death penalty, she noted racial disparities at every level of the legal system while equating police shootings and white vigilante violence to a "modern death penalty (that) is the direct descendant of slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow-segregation" (Death Penalty Information Center).
The Supreme Court came to similar conclusions when it struck down capital punishment in 1972, due to the “arbitrary and capricious way” it had been employed up to that point, especially in regards to race. The court reversed course five years later to acknowledge that 66% of Americans supported capital punishment, but with the caveat that a “model of guided discretion” would be used (History).
Unfortunately, discretion has never guided this country when dealing with racism or the unequal punishments it leverages against Black people. Case in point; though Black people make up only 13.4% of this country’s population, they account for 32.8% of people in prison Bureau of Justice Facts).
According to still applicable findings from 1990, conducted by the U.S. General Accounting Office, 82% of reviewed studies showed that a victim’s race influenced death penalty charges, “i.e., those who murdered whites were found more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered Blacks” (NYTimes). Actual numbers of people executed for interracial murders since 1976 show that 21 white defendants convicted of murdering Black people were given death sentences, whereas 297 Black defendants who were convicted of murdering white people were assigned death sentences.
This final solution is not justice, especially when the legal system has been proven to associate being Black with criminality, mete out harsher sentences against Black defendants, and prevent Black people from serving on juries for death-penalty cases (VOX). What drives the racism in this disparity home is that since 1991, Black people have consistently accounted for 40% of people on death row (NYTimes, NAACP, Death Penalty Information Center).
This manifests even when violent crime is not a factor. For example, though most Americans do not support the death penalty to punish drug crimes, President Trump began tweeting for its application against those convictions in December 2018. This, despite the reality that Black people are six times more likely to be imprisoned for drug charges than white people even though both groups use drugs at similar rates, with 21.8% of Black people being incarcerated on drug charges (Drug War Facts).
Soon after Trump’s drug tweets, then-attorney general Jeff Sessions put forward a memo instructing prosecutors to apply capital punishment with reference to Title II of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, nicknamed the “1994 Crime Bill” that emphasized applying the death penalty towards crimes involving drugs (CNN). And then, after 16 years of no executions at the federal level, President Trump insisted that the government “bring back the death penalty.”
In late July, Attorney General William Barr followed suit and ordered the Bureau of Prisons to schedule the deaths of five inmates. The first three executions were of white men, followed by a Navajo man and then two more white men. Critics denounced this scheduling as a political maneuver to allay racial tensions over the murder of George Floyd. As if to reinforce their claims, since September 24, the federal government has executed four Black men consecutively and of the 57 people who were on federal death row at that point, 34 were people of color, including 26 Black men (AP News).
On December 10th and 11th, two Black men, Brandon Bernard and Alfred Bourgeois, were killed. In 2018, Bernard’s legal team discovered that the trial prosecutor withheld information from the defense (NPR). Five out of the nine living jurors who sentenced him to death changed their minds after learning this (Reuters). Bourgeois was found to have an IQ ranging between 70 and 75 during his trial. This should have prevented his execution under the Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling on Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, which determined that the government could not put intellectually disabled people to death (NBC). Despite these disqualifying issues, both men were put to death (The Guardian). Most egregious of all, according to Robert Owen, a death-penalty litigator who represented Bernard, is that he had never seen such a speedy federal execution schedule (New Yorker).
There are currently two men on federal death row slated for execution before Trump leaves office: Cory Johnson, who was mentally disabled when he was convicted is slated for January 14 (Richmond Times-Dispatch). Dustin John Higgs, who did not pull the trigger for the murders that he was involved in, is scheduled to be executed the following day (Baltimore Sun). Both men are Black, have COVID-19, and are requesting commutation of their sentences (The Guardian).
Outrage over the deaths of Bernard and Bourgeois has come from politicians, celebrities, and ordinary citizens. As Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts stated, "state-sanctioned murder is not justice.” And even more importantly, in a letter to Joe Biden, “With a stroke of your pen, you can stop all federal executions” and end the death penalty as an option (The Hill). Unfortunately, this will do little to save Johnson or Higgs.
While many believe that Biden will pursue criminal justice reform after he is inaugurated, it cannot be forgotten that he believes in working with both sides even when they were segregationists (Washington Post). 77% of Republicans who participated in a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center stated that they supported the death penalty, particularly older people (Pew Research). With the control that the outgoing president has over his party, it is unclear if those governmental representatives will participate in reform (Washington Post).
Anyone interested in dismantling the racist death grip on our prison system will need to put constant pressure on their elected officials if they want to see change. And while it may seem like a pipe dream, working to remove attorney generals who apply the penalty means that it will never go into effect. But the most important act is to stay informed. For the latest information about the death penalty, follow the Death Penalty Information Center, which reports on every new change in policy and law. For too long, the legal system has relied upon the belief that ordinary citizens do not care. As millions of activists proved this year, when we show up and make our voices heard, change happens.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Black people are disproportionately prevented from serving from juries when the death penalty is an option and account for no less than 40% of people given death sentences.
The death penalty is legally applied to Black people informally by police officers and has been used historically to keep Black communities in check.
The president has the power to eliminate the death penalty without relying upon the legislative or judicial bodies.
Related Issues
1/6/2021 | End felony disenfranchisement.
10/29/2020 | Fight racist death row sentencing.
9/20/2020 | Make the justice system more diverse.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza