Donald Trump could execute 40 prisoners in second term ‘bloodbath,’ anti-death penalty campaigners fear
Campaigners against the fear of the death penalty Donald Trump would execute dozens of prisoners if re-elected during the “largest federal civilian execution spree” in US history.
There are currently 40 inmates on federal death row, which is located at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute. Indiana. No one was put to death during the war Joe Biden‘s presidency.
Biden, 81, is the first president to openly oppose the death penalty and had promised in his 2020 campaign to “pass legislation to abolish the death penalty at the federal level.”
Instead, he imposed a moratorium, which Trump could end immediately if he returns to the United States White House.
“It is very likely that there will be a bloodbath if he returns to office.” Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Policy Project, told DailyMail.com
An undated image of the execution chamber on federal death row, located at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana
Former President Donald Trump would oversee a historic number of executions if re-elected, anti-death penalty campaigners say
Thirteen federal executions were carried out in Trump’s final six months in office. These were the first since 2003.
It included three after the 2020 election — the first time since Grover Cleveland in 1889 that federal prisoners were put to death by an outgoing president.
A signal of what could happen in a second Trump term can be found in “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” a lengthy document produced by Project 25, which is involved in planning for a future Trump administration.
A chapter on the Department of Justice says of the death penalty: “Issuing this sentence without ever carrying it out provides justice neither for the families of the victims nor for the suspect.
“The next Conservative administration must therefore do everything possible to achieve finality for the inmates currently on federal death row.”
Joe Biden has imposed a moratorium on federal executions and activists want him to commute all death sentences
The federal death row is located in Terre Haute, Indiana
Trump himself has strongly supported the execution and has called for those “caught selling drugs” to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts.
More federal prisoners were executed during his first term than any other president since Franklin Roosevelt carried out sixteen executions in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Those executed in the final months of Trump’s first term included Brandon Bernard, who was put to death for his role in the 1999 murder of a religious Iowa couple.
Bernard, who was 18 at the time of the murders, was a rare execution of a person who was in his teens when his crime was committed.
Reality TV star Kim Kardashian West had appealed to Trump to commute Bernard’s sentence to life in prison, citing, among other things, the remorse Bernard had expressed.
Kim Kardashian appealed to President Trump to commute Brandon Bernard’s sentence
An activist opposing the death penalty protests during a snowstorm outside the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, USA, January 15, 2020
Lisa Montgomery in a booking photo released on December 20, 2004 in Kansas City, Kansas.
Nine days before Trump left office, the federal government carried out the first execution of a woman in nearly seven decades.
Lisa Montgomery, 52, was executed by lethal injection after being sentenced to death for strangling an expectant mother in Missouri and cutting the baby from her womb.
Overall, in 2020, the U.S. government carried out more executions in one year than all states that still carry out executions combined.
Among the inmates still on federal death row are two who were convicted in 1993.
This includes Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Dunham called on Biden, if he loses the election, to commute all death sentences to life without parole before he leaves office.
The outgoing president could do that ‘with the stroke of a pen’.
The federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana
In Terre Haute, Indiana, forty men are on federal death row
He said: “The proposal that calls for killing everyone on federal death row is so extreme, so lacking in principle and human dignity that it creates a moral obligation for President Biden to prevent this from happening if he loses the election.
‘Events that presidents do not anticipate often determine their presidential legacy. This is one of those events.
“If President Biden loses and does nothing, his legacy will be largely defined by his role in facilitating the largest wave of federal civil executions in this country’s history. I don’t think he wants this to be his legacy.’
Performed in 2020/21: (shown clockwise) Alfred Bourgeois, Brandon Bernard, Orlando Cordia Hall, Christopher Vialva, William Emmett Lecroy, Jr and William Emmett Lecroy,
The death penalty has not been a major issue in the US presidential race since 1988.
Democrat candidate Michael Dukakis, an opponent of the death penalty, was criticized for showing little emotion when asked during a debate whether he would support his wife being raped and murdered.
However, it could quickly become a major problem if Trump retakes the White House.
Performed in 2020/21: (clockwise photo) Lezmond Charles Mitchell, Dustin Lee Honken, Daniel Lewis Lee and Wesley Ira Purkey
According to Gallup polls, support for the death penalty against convicted murderers has fallen from 80 percent in 1994 to 53 percent last year.
In November, Gallup found for the first time that more Americans believe the death penalty is unfair than fair: 50 to 47 percent.
The vast majority of convicted prisoners are sentenced at the state level. In addition to the federal government, the death penalty is legal in 27 states, although most of those states have not carried out executions for years.
