US govt's death penalty move draws sharp criticism from rights groups, Democrats

The Trump administration's move to resume executions after a 16-year hiatus has drawn sharp criticism from human rights groups and leading Democrats, including Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris.

In a major U-turn, the Department of Justice on Thursday announced that the US will resume capital punishment after a gap of nearly two decades and has set execution dates for five death-row inmates convicted of murders or rapes of children or the elderly.

"Under Administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought the death penalty against the worst criminals, including these five murderers, each of whom was convicted by a jury of his peers after a full and fair proceeding," US Attorney General William Barr said in a statement.

 

"The Justice Department upholds the rule of law - and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by the justice system," he said.

The executions have been scheduled for December 2019 and January 2020. Barr's announcement lifts what was an informal moratorium on the federal death penalty - as opposed to state-directed executions - since the 2003 execution of Louis Jones Jr, a 53-year-old a Gulf War veteran who murdered 19-year-old soldier Tracie Joy McBride.

Under the US justice system, crimes can be tried either in federal courts or state courts, at a regional level. Certain crimes that apply nationally, such as counterfeiting currency or mail theft, are automatically tried at a federal level, while others are tried in federal courts based on the severity of the crimes.

Several candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination called for the death penalty to be abolished.

Democratic presidential candidate Harris described the death penalty as "immoral and deeply flawed", while Bernie Sanders said he would abolish it if elected.

Another candidate for the Democratic nomination, Pete Buttigieg, said "race and geography" were factors in determining who was sentenced to death.

the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the fact that the executions had been scheduled close together raised "serious questions about the fairness for each of those cases".

"We need time to consider and review cases and there's just absolutely no basis for lumping cases together in this way and rushing forward," said Cassy Stubbs from the group.