US announces moratorium on federal executions
US Justice Minister Merrick Garland, here June 25, 2021, has just announced a moratorium on the death penalty at the federal level.
REUTERS - KEN CEDENO
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
It was the US Minister of Justice Merrick Garland who announced it.
The United States will suspend executions at the federal level.
These had been relaunched by Donald Trump in the last months of his presidency, at a rate never seen before, while they had been suspended for 17 years.
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“
Arbitrary
”
executions
, with “
the disproportionate impact on people of color
”: these are the “
serious concerns
” that lead the US Department of Justice to suspend federal executions.
Merrick Garland also requested a study on the drug used for the executions, pentobarbital, which would present risks of suffering for the condemned man.
The minister is also questioning the decision taken last year under the Trump presidency to pave the way for other methods - such as electrocution and firing squads.
This establishment of a moratorium comes as some Democrats began to criticize Merrick Garland, too slow in their opinion to unravel what was put in place during
the Trump era
.
Death row
Today, opponents of the death penalty see "
a step in the right direction
", but believe that we are far from the mark: President Joe Biden had promised during his campaign to abolish the death penalty at the federal level and encourage states to do the same.
There, explains in the
Wall Street Journal
the director of the Information Center on the death penalty, Robert Dunham, “
we will return to the
previous status
of the death penalty, but it will still be in place.
"
Today, 2,570 people are awaiting execution on death row in the United States, including 50 at the federal level.
► See also: United States: Virginia abolishes the death penalty, a historic moment
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