source: The Guardian

published: 14 October 2023

Image Credit: Jimmy Chan at www.Pexels.com

If Donald Trump wins the election, he is expected to pursue a spree of executions that could fast-track the cases of people on federal death row, and threaten the life of a man with a longstanding innocence claim.

Advocates for people on death row fear a second Trump term could be worse than his first, which saw an unprecedented 13 federal executions. Under Trump, more people incarcerated in the federal system were put to death than under the previous 10 presidents combined, a staggering number that raised grave human rights concerns.

Among those who were executed were people with intellectual disabilities. Defendants were deprived of opportunities to present new evidence. Some were killed after lawyers said the execution method was “tortuous”. In some cases, executions occurred over the objections of both victims and prosecutors.

Since his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Trump’s pro-death penalty rhetoric, which dates back to his 1989 campaign against the Central Park Five, has only escalated. He’s recently called for executions of “everyone who gets caught selling drugs” and has reportedly suggested government leakers should be executed for treason.

Last year, Rolling Stone reported, Trump allegedly floated bringing back firing squads and hangings and pursuing group executions and televised killings.

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