Among Barr's legacy, a spree of federal executions
On the death penalty, Barr's resignation, and the Trump administration
Welcome to The Breaking Point, a weekly(ish) newsletter that explores the historical legacies of injustice based on the news cycle and culture trends to understand what in the world is going on.
Editor’s note: Yes, The Breaking Point is back!! I was only planning to take a couple weeks off, but besides my post-election mental health break, I’ve actually been busy putting out a slew of stories for Vox. Check them out. Also, thanks so much to the handful of you who checked in while I was away — truly appreciate it. (Also this newsletter is dedicated to my mom who keeps yelling “where’s my newsletter?!” every time we talk on the phone)
First off, here are some stories you probably missed while I was away:
Shingle Mountain: How a pile of toxic pollution was dumped in a community of color by Darryl Fears, The Washington Post
The challenge of combating fake news in Asian American communities by Terry Nguyen, Vox
The fossil fuel industry wants you to believe it’s good for people of color by Sammy Roth, Los Angeles Times
Photo by Maria Oswalt on Unsplash
From his controversial handling of the Russia probe to false claims about the integrity of mail-in ballots, US Attorney General William Barr has always stood by President Trump. But then, earlier this month, Barr said the Justice Department found zero evidence of widespread voter fraud during the elections — a direct contradiction of the president’s baseless claims. And yesterday, Barr announced he is leaving the administration just before Christmas, ending his roughly two-year tenure.
Today, I wanted to take a look at one of Barr’s legacies as the head of the Justice Department: the Trump administration’s high rate of federal executions.
A few weeks ago, I wrote an explainer piece about the spate of federal executions happening during Trump’s last weeks in office. In less than six months, Trump’s Justice Department has already executed ten people, with three more to come in the new year. To put that number in perspective, only three people had been put to death by the federal government in the past 50 years.
Last week, the Trump administration proceeded with two of its last executions for 2020. Both were Black men. Brandon Bernard, a 40-year-old Black man, who was convicted of kidnapping and murder when he was only 18 years old, was put to death by lethal injection on Thursday. Before his execution, Bernard’s attorneys had been pleading to stay their client’s execution due to various reasons. Even five of the nine surviving jurors, including the federal prosecutor, who helped put him on death row at the time, all believe Bernard should live and that the death penalty was inappropriate. The following is a video of Bernard during his last day.
The next day, the administration executed Alfred Bourgeois, a Black man who was convicted of abusing and killing his 2-year-old daughter in 2002. Bourgeois’ attorneys also argued to stay his death sentence due to intellectual disability.
Bernard and Bourgeois aren’t the last executions. Just before President-elect Joe Biden officially takes office, the Justice Department still has three more federal executions scheduled: Cory Johnson and Dustin Higgs, both Black men, and Lisa Montgomery, the first woman set to be federally executed in nearly 70 years.
This repulsive spree of federal executions is one of Barr’s legacies. In July — in the middle of nationwide protests for racial justice and a deadly pandemic that’s disproportionately killing marginalized communities — the Trump administration brought back the federal death penalty after a 17-year hiatus. That’s not all. Last month, Barr also published a new rule that would allow other methods of execution besides lethal injection, including firing squads, lethal gas, and electrocutions.
When I spoke with Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, for the story, not only did he explain how “historically abhorrent” Trump’s policy on capital punishment is but he also explained how strategic they’ve been with the executions happening in concert with the rallying cry for racial justice.
“In terms of race, it appears the administration made a strategic choice to execute white people first … in an apparent effort to forestall criticism that the federal executions were racist,” Dunahm told me. “But the post-election executions are mostly [Black] defendants with the exception Ms. Montgomery, who is a severely mentally ill woman with a horrifying background of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.”
Figure of the week: 85
The percent of Americans needed to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to reach “true herd immunity,” according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease scientist. (Source: Vox)
Like many things in the United States, Britain influenced America’s death penalty policies more than any other country it colonized. And much like state level executions today, death penalty laws at the time varied from colony to colony. Believe it or not, some colonies like Virginia gave death sentences to people who committed even the most minor crimes such as stealing grapes, killing livestock, and striking deals with Native Americans.
Dunham told me that Trump’s federal executions this year marks the deadliest civilian executions in a single calendar year than any other presidency in the 20th and 21st centuries. The most ever federal executions in a single calendar year on record was in 1896 during President Grover Cleveland’s second term. See the chart below for more.
Bernard and Bourgeois' executions also comes on the heels of the 70th anniversary of the state execution of the Martinsville Seven — the seven Black men who were executed for raping a white woman in Martinsville, Virginia. The Washington Post reports that activists and descendants are demanding Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam to issue a posthumous pardon. While the petition does not argue that the men were innocent, it does say that the rushed trials that led to capital punishment goes against any concept of justice. The petition states:
The Martinsville Seven were not given adequate due process . . . They were sentenced to death for a crime that a white person would not have been executed for . . . and they were killed, by the Commonwealth, ‘simply for being black.’
If you go back to the historical legacy of racism and outright injustice Black people faced at the time, it’s no surprise that they also disproportionately suffered more executions than white people in addition to nationwide lynchings. Here’s another compelling graph from Dunham:
Dunham tells me that it’s also utterly telling how out of step, when it comes to the death penalty, the Trump administration is. That the Justice Department’s high rate of executions is happening just as more people oppose capital punishment than ever and as state executions are at its lowest level on record. Not to mention in the middle of a pandemic that is already disproportionately killing Black, Indigenous, and other people of color.
“The Trump administration's conduct, when it comes to criminal legal issues, has been highly political, and mostly out of step with the direction that most of the United States is heading,” he told me. “It gets treated as definitely policy more like it's use of force against peaceful protesters, more like its separation of immigrant families and its disregard for the needs of those who justifiably seek asylum.”
The Trump administration, he adds, “reverted to policies that are more extreme in their cruelty, and the arbitrariness of their application than anything else we have seen in modern American history.”
Story breakers 📖
'Clemency and mercy': Minnesota to free Myon Burrell, convicted in 2002 death of 11-year-old girl by Robin McDowell and Margie Mason, The Associated Press
How Pacific Islanders have been left to fend for themselves in the pandemic by me, Rachel Ramirez, Vox
For years, JaMarcus Crews tried to get a new kidney, but corporate healthcare stood in the way by Lizzie Presser, ProPublica
What happens when the fallout from the nation’s largest industrial disaster goes nuclear? by Austyn Gaffney, Grist
An eviction moratorium expires at the end of the month, but thousands of Texans are still not able to afford rent by Juan Pablo Garnham, The Texas Tribune
Study: Allowing evictions during Covid-19 could have caused nearly 11,000 unnecessary deaths by Jerusalem Demsas, Vox
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