On July 2, White House spokesman Psaki said that President Biden was in favor of abolishing the death penalty in the country and believed that the decision of the US Department of Justice to suspend the execution of the death penalty announced on the 1st was an important step forward.
Comprehensive China News Network, Russian Satellite News Agency reported that at the press conference on the 2nd, in the face of "regarding the US Department of Justice announced the moratorium on executions, whether Biden is satisfied with this, or wants to go further", Psaki said that Biden clearly stated that he wanted to abolish the death penalty, "He is glad to see that the attorney general is moving forward." ”
Psaki stressed that Biden felt it was important to abolish the death penalty, and he had discussed it with the attorney general.
On the 1st, US Attorney General Garland announced that while reviewing the corresponding judicial procedures, he had ordered a moratorium on the execution of the federal death penalty. In the meantime, the Ministry of Justice will continue to consider the issue of the death penalty. Garland said in a statement, "The Justice Department must ensure that everyone in the federal criminal justice system not only receives the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and laws, but also is treated fairly and humanely." He added that "this obligation has special effect in death penalty cases."
During the era of former President Trump, the Justice Department resumed federal executions in July 2020 after a gap of 17 years. No president has executed so many federal executions in office for more than 120 years. Despite calls by civil rights leaders, celebrities, lawmakers and anti-death penalty advocates to halt executions, 12 men and 1 woman were executed during Trump's last seven months in office.
Federal prison in Trehout, Indiana. (Image source: Associated Press profile photo)
Dustin Higgs, the last prisoner to be executed under Trump, was laid to justice at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, less than a week after Trump left office, according to the Associated Press.
The executors who executed the 13 prisoners differed significantly in their descriptions of the lethal process by injection. They likened the process to falling asleep in official court documents, calling the wheel bed a "bed" and the final spitting a "snoring."
President Joe Biden pledged when he took the oath of office that the federal government would abolish the death penalty when he took office. White House spokesman Andrew Bates also said in public: "As the president has made clear before, he is very concerned about everything related to the death penalty, and he believes that the Justice Department should resume the previous practice of not carrying out executions." ”
About 2,500 male and female prisoners in the United States are currently on death row, and while no death sentence has been carried out since Biden took office, Garland's directive has not stopped the proceedings involving those prisoners.
Public opinion on the abolition of the death penalty in the United States is divided. Some netizens commented on social media: "Gun crime in the United States is so rampant, once there is no shock from the death penalty, will the situation still be out of control?" (End)