No one but Tsarnaev?

The US prosecutor general suspended death executions at the federal level until the practice that Trump introduced is analyzed

17 years in the United States were not executed by death sentences at the federal level, but the 45th president simplified the procedure for executions of prisoners. This has led to the fact that in the last six months of his presidency 13 people have been executed - the highest rate of the use of high measures over 120 years. In particular, for the first time in 70 years, a woman was executed by the feds.

Prosecutor General Merrick Garland (at the same time-Minister of Justice), who was a member of the prosecutors who have achieved the death penalty for a terrorist from Oklahom-City Timothy Makwei, said that for decades after the 1995 terrorist attack, he saw "problems with the death of the death penalty." Then the explosion of a government building took the lives of 168 people, including 19 children under six years old.

The Prosecutor General expressed concern about what he called the “arbitrary use of the death penalty”, its unequal use in relation to African -Americans and other minorities, as well as “anxious number of unreasonable acquittals” - in cases where, opposing the execution, the jury allowed malicious criminals. According to Garland, in the review of the Ministry of Justice, a “risk of pain and suffering” associated with Pentobarbital - an injection drug that the federal government used to execute prisoners will be considered. He also asked officials to reconsider the rules adopted by Trump, after which the federal government was no longer obliged to give deaths through injection, which opened the way for other methods such as executions and gas chambers.

In the United States, at the federal level, they will be preceded for state treason, espionage, murder, in certain cases - for large -scale drug trafficking or attempting to kill a witness, jury or bailiff.

One of Joseph Biden’s election promises was the adoption of the law on the abolition of the death penalty, but only at the federal level.

Instead, people should serve life imprisonment without a trial period or parole.

At the state level, local authorities - governors and legislative assemblies solve the issue. In the USA, the principle of separation of powers works.

No president can ban or resolve the death penalty throughout the country. In the election, Biden only promised "to encourage the states to follow the example of the federal government."

By the way, in almost half the states the death penalty is already officially prohibited. In March of this year, Virginia became the 23rd and the first state of the Historical South in history (a participant in the Civil War on the side of the Confederation) to cancel the execution.

Historically, the issue of attitude to the highest extent is like a litmus piece for supporters of the two largest parties in America (as well as the right to abortion or the right of citizens to carry firearms). This "triad" accurately shares the Republicans and Democrats. Now it was added to her attitude to the LGBT community.

• Democrats - for "reproductive freedom", tightening control of personal trunks and for the ban on the death penalty.

• Republicans , respectively - “for the right to life”, unconditional freedom of ownership of weapons and preserving higher measures.

According to the press secretary of President Jen Psaki, "Biden made it clear that he was seriously concerned about whether the death penalty that is currently used, values ​​that are fundamental to our justice and justice, corresponds."

It is curious that in this matter Biden has its own “skeleton in the closet”. Being in the last supporter of the death penalty, he helped to develop 1994 laws, which expanded the list of federal crimes that are punishable by execution.

Bidden later admitted that these laws were disproportionately strongly influenced by African Americans in the cells of suicide bombers. So for Bayden this moratorium is an attempt to “rehabilitate”.

According to the Public Organization for Equal Justice, although black Americans make up only 13 percent of the country's population, they represent 40 percent of prisoners sentenced to death. The study showed that at least one of 25 people sentenced to higher in the United States, “most likely”, is not guilty.

The moratorium means that the execution of 49 concluded in the cells of suicide bombers of federal and military prisons was postponed indefinitely. And in total, in American prisons, about 2500 sentences await execution. By the way, as soon as Biden took office, not a single death sentence was led to execution. But at the same time, on June 14, the Ministry of Justice sent the country to the Supreme Court of the country to restore the death penalty for Johar Tsarnaev, who, together with his brother Tamerlang, blew up bombs on the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, which led to the death of three people, more than 260 were injured. The Court of Appeal canceled the death penalty of the youngest Tsarnaev under the pretext that the judge of first instance could not protect the jury from the influence of external factors that could affect an impartial and objective assessment.

It is not yet clear whether the just introduced moratorium on Tsarnaev will be extended if the US Armed Forces confirm the verdict of the federal court, according to which a fatal injection awaits the perpetrator. The Supreme Court decided to consider the restoration of the death sentence. But even some victims of Tsarnaev called for pardon. “I do not want someone to be killed on my behalf,” wrote Mike Bogart, who survived the explosion at the Boston Marathon, in a statement to the country's highest court. “I hope that the Biden administration will review the issue of the death sentence and Tsarnaev will hold the rest of his life in prison.”

In addition to Tsarnaev, Dylanne Ruf was sentenced to death, who in 2015 killed nine black parishioners in Charleston, South Carolina. In May, Ruf asked the court of appeal to cancel this sentence.

Initially, the Ministry of Justice sought the execution of Tsarnaev under President Obama and General Prosecutor Eric Holdere, who personally oppose the use of higher measures. After an unsuccessful execution in the state of Oklahom in 2014 (Vienna broke in the prisoner, and he died in torment only 43 minutes after 43 minutes) Obama instructed the Ministry of Justice to revise the use of the death penalty and more carefully study the drugs used in deadly injections.

It is noteworthy that many chemical manufacturers refused to supply products to America that can be used for fatal injection.

The prison authorities faced a real shortage, this actually stopped the federal executions since 2003 (until Trump has allowed alternative executions).

However, the official moratorium on the death penalty did not receive the support of the Washington establishment. And even the current moratorium on July 1 is temporary.

Supporters of the unconditional abolition of the death penalty, welcoming the step of the Biden administration, note that this is clearly not enough. “The actions of the Prosecutor General are not close to the promise of the President to cancel the death penalty,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Washington Public Organization “Information Center for the Mortal Health”. “The maximum that he does is eliminating part of the damage caused by the Trump administration.”

220 American NPOs turned to Biden calling for the abolition of the death penalty, but for the cancellation the corresponding law should be adopted by the congress.

More than half of the Americans - for the death penalty

• Support for the death penalty among Americans is now at a historical minimum after a peak in the mid-1990s. The latest surveys show that now it ranges from 55%. That is, more than half of the still “for” the death penalty.

• Although 78% admit that innocent may die due to errors.