At the end of President Trump’s last term, we witnessed a horrific frenzy of killing. In just seven months, the federal government executed thirteen people with no regard for the overwhelming evidence of racism and injustice in the federal death penalty. This spree of executions was even more heartbreaking because the United States had gone seventeen years without one, and many of us believed the federal death penalty would quietly fade away.
Now, we have no doubt that Trump will deliver on his promise to continue executions as soon as he takes office. That’s why CDPL joins civil rights activists, corrections officials, victim family members, and religious leaders across the country in calling on President Biden to use his clemency power to remove all 40 people from federal death row. This is in addition to our call for Gov. Cooper to commute North Carolina’s 136 death sentences. Both actions could prevent outdated and deeply flawed death sentences from being carried out in overwhelming numbers.
At one time, CDPL worked on the cases of all three men on federal death row from North Carolina: Marcivicci Barnette, Richard Jackson, and Alejandro Umana. We have seen first-hand that the federal death row has the very same flaws that haunt North Carolina’s death row. It is deeply racist and a majority of those facing execution are people of color, some of whom were sentenced by all-white juries. Many federal death sentences are decades old and reflect different standards of justice. In such a deeply flawed system, there is the ever-looming threat of executing an innocent person.
The death penalty does nothing to improve public safety or prevent crime. Instead, it traumatizes prison staff and innocent families and wastes millions in taxpayer dollars. That’s why we ask President Biden to lead the way in clearing federal death row. His bold action would clear a path for more states, including North Carolina, to move away from capital punishment and towards policies that make communities safer and more vibrant.