The US federal authorities resume the death penalty after a long break: there are first applicants

The federal government ordered the death penalty reinstated for the first time in almost two decades. The Attorney General ordered the Prison Bureau to schedule the execution of five prisoners.

Фото: Depositphotos

The death penalty in the United States was abolished 16 years ago. Barr has now ordered the head of the Bureau of Prisons to execute "five prisoners convicted of murder, and in some cases, torture and rape, of the most vulnerable in our society - children and the elderly." The executions are scheduled for December and January, according to a Justice Department statement.

“The Department of Justice supports the rule of law. And we owe it to victims and their families to endure the sentences handed down by our justice system,” Barr said in a statement.

Earlier, the issue of the death penalty was raised by President Donald Trump and called for "returning the death penalty."

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The death penalty is legal in 29 states and the federal government, although no federal executions were carried out for almost two decades. And the number of people threatened with the death penalty has been falling.

The debate about the death penalty has been going on for a long time. Advocates argue that it is a deterrent against serious crimes and that justice thus serves the victims or their families. Opponents, however, point to the racial differences of prisoners sentenced to the death penalty, financial costs and wrongful convictions.

At Barr's direction, the Bureau of Prisons adopted a Federal Execution Protocol Supplement that "replaces the three-drug procedure previously used in federal executions with a single injection of pentobarbital," the Justice Department announced.

Barr's order directs the federal government to use a new protocol - similar to one used by several states and which has been under consideration for a number of years.

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Barr ordered the start of execution at the end of this year, but the timing may change due to legal problems.

“Saying you're going to accept a protocol is not the same as correctly adopting a protocol through the necessary administrative procedures,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

“You can't just say it and implement it. There is a legal process for the protocol to take effect, and there is a legal process for challenging the protocol,” he added.

For example, in the District of Columbia, a lawsuit related to the federal lethal injection process continues. A series of questions will be asked about how the federal government is receiving the injection that it intends to use.

Five federal prisoners who want to be executed:

— Daniel Lewis Lee for the murder of a family of three, including an 8-year-old girl;

- Lezmond Mitchell for the murder of a 63-year-old woman and her 9-year-old granddaughter;

- Wesley Ira Purkey for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl;

- Alfred Bourgeois for the torture and murder of his own two-year-old daughter;

- Dustin Lee Honken for shooting and killing five people, including two little girls.

A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons told CNN that the date and time of the execution are set in accordance with the law.

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According to Death Penalty Information Center, currently 62 prisoners are in federal death row. The death penalty is legal in 29 US states. About 2600 prisoners sentenced to death were detained in California.

Of the five men, three are white, one is black and one is Native American, according to the center.

Only three federal prisoners were executed in the United States after they reinstated the federal death penalty in 1988.

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