Durbin calls for Trump, Barr to halt executions
Congressional Dems say death penalty should be suspended for Biden-Harris administration
The Trump administration has rapidly increased the pace of death-row executions since resuming them in July. (Shutterstock)
By Ted Cox
The state’s senior U.S. senator is calling for the Trump administration to suspend death-penalty executions until President-elect Biden takes office.
Dick Durbin has joined Senate colleagues Cory Booker of New Jersey and Patrick Leahy of Vermont as well as U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts in sending a letter to U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr urging him to “suspend all federal executions so the incoming Biden-Harris administration can evaluate and determine the future use of the death penalty by the federal government.”
U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr and President Trump have pushed through seven executions since resuming them in July after a 17-year hiatus. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
They sent a letter Friday to Barr pointing out that “for more than 17 years, no federal death sentence was carried out. Then, in July 2020, you recklessly restarted federal executions. In less than three months, the administration executed seven people — more than the total number executed over the previous six decades.”
They cited how another execution is scheduled to take place Thursday, with two more set for next month. The congressional Democrats emphasized that “the failure to do so will cause irrevocable injustice,” in that executions, once carried out, of course cannot be reversed. The letter to Barr added, “While you will remain in office for a few more weeks, going forward with executions in the weeks before the new administration takes office would be a grave injustice.”
The letter granted that there’s little doubt what course the Biden administration will take on the death penalty, stating: “President-elect Biden’s plan for strengthening America’s commitment to justice includes the elimination of the federal death penalty, and Vice President-elect Harris is an original co-sponsor of legislation we have introduced to eliminate the federal death penalty.”
According to a news release from Durbin’s office, the Illinois senator joined Pressley, Leahy, and Booker in introducing legislation last year to immediately ban the use of the death penalty by the federal government, after Barr announced that federal executions would resume for the first time in more than 16 years.
The death penalty is outlawed in 21 states, including Illinois, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Jersey. In the midst of a corruption investigation that eventually landed him in prison, Gov. George Ryan originally ordered a moratorium on Illinois executions in 1999, later commuting the sentences of 160 state inmates on death row to life in prison shortly before he left office in 2003. He cited rampant instances of death-penalty cases being overturned in the courts or ordered for retrial.
Friday’s letter echoed that, stating: “The death penalty in America is disproportionately imposed on Black and Brown people and low-income people, and at least 172 people sentenced to death have reportedly been exonerated after languishing for years on death row. Despite clear flaws in the system, the administration has aggressively pushed forward over objections from family members of victims and despite Eighth Amendment objections to the manner of execution.”