This year’s execution rate in the United States is already a dark and historically unprecedented. Last July marked the first federal execution since 2003 and, before this year, only three people had been executed by the government in the past 50 years.
In addition, eight people have been executed in the last five months, which makes the atypical 2020 the first year, since the end of World War II, in which the federal government executed more than five citizens.
In this development of decisions, it is also highlighted the fact that after President Donald Trump lost the recent presidential elections, the pace of these processes has still accelerated. At this point, if all scheduled executions are carried out, 13 people will have been executed under the Trump administration, all belonging to the Terre Haute Prison in the United States. Six will have occurred since President-elect Joe Biden won the election, with some taking place just days before he took office.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, it is the first time since 1889 that the federal government has carried out an execution in the period between the presidential election and the inauguration of a new president. The government scheduled two more federal executions before the end of the year, or rather, this week: Lisa Montgomery, on December 8 and Bernard for today, December 10.
Bernard, 40, was charged with complicity in the abduction, theft and murder of a couple in Texas in 1999 when he was 18. According to the prosecution, in 2002, he bought the fuel and set the car on fire where the two victims were, who had been shot in the head by another member of the group. Christopher Vialva, who was 19 at the time of the crime, and who was accused of being the leader of the group, was executed three months ago in the Terre Haute prison in Indiana.
Without a decision to the contrary, Bernard will be executed this Thursday, by lethal injection, in the prison of Terre Haute, where the condemned to death are executed for crimes that go beyond the jurisdictions of each American state and that are treated in the federal system.
Remember that Trump for decades has publicly come out as a defender of the death penalty. His administration will be marked by the deadliest months in terms of federal executions, under the direction of Attorney General William Barr.
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