The US government is no longer executing people. The Biden administration wants to investigate whether the fundamental rights of death row inmates are not being violated and whether a fair and humane execution of the sentence is possible.
The Democratic president’s announcement follows a boom in executions under his predecessor Trump, who resumed executions after a 17-year period. He had 13 people executed in the last six months of his presidency, more than any other president in the past century.
It is not clear how long the executions will be halted. One of the things that will be examined is a new method of execution, which uses only one agent instead of three. The US was forced to switch to this procedure after several pharmaceutical companies refused to make funds available for executions.
There are reports that this method of execution can lead to pain in the death row inmate: the drug damages the alveoli, which could feel like drowning.
hope for more
Opponents of the death penalty applaud Biden’s decision, but hope he will do more. For example, a lawyer representing death row inmates says he hopes the president will convert all federal death sentences into prison terms “to prevent an unscrupulous massacre like last year.”
Biden has said in the past that he is against the death penalty. He also said the strict laws disproportionately affect black Americans: of the 46 people who are on the federal… death row sitting, there are 20 white, 18 black, 7 hispanic and 1 asian.
Downward trend
27 US states still have the death penalty. The moratorium imposed by Biden does not affect that.
Last year, seven executions were carried out in five states, the lowest number in 20 years. This year, only the state of Texas has executed two inmates so far.
The number of death sentences carried out has been on a downward trend for years after a peak in 1999 of 98 executions. Popular support for the death penalty is more or less evenly distributed. Earlier this year, Virginia, once a state where death sentences were popular, abolished the punishment of.
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