Nine down, 4 to go in Barr ExecutionPalooza

The six Supreme Court conservatives voted Thursday to let the killing of fellow human beings continue, denying a stay in the federal execution of Brandon Bernard, for a double murder 20 years ago. An hour later Bernard was dead. How’s that for being ‘pro life’? The three progressives, outnumbered 2 to 1, at least went on record against state sponsored murder. Bernard was the ninth federal prisoner executed in the last five months since Attorney General Bill Barr announced an end to the 17 year moratorium on federal executions. He’s got 4 more planned in his last 35 days, 3 alone in Barr’s last week. Barr’s execution frenzy breaks a 130 year tradition of staying federal executions in the transition to a new administration. Is incoming President Biden’s pledge to end all federal executions driving Barr’s rush to kill, or is he simply satisfying his bloodlust?

A year before ExecutionPalooza began, Rep. Pressley Ayanna (D-MA) introduced H.R. 4052 which would abolish the federal death penalty. A month later it was moved to its own death row so far in the Committee of Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. Forty-eight of the 52 folks on federal death row will live on to the Biden administration. Let’s all get behind passage of H.R. 4052 to end the scourge of state sponsored murder at the federal level.