In 2020, for the first time in American history, the federal government executed more prisoners than the 50 states combined. Lisa Montgomery, convicted in 2008 for murder, must even become, today, the first woman executed by the federal government in 70 years. Incarcerated at Terre Haute federal penitentiary in Indiana, where the Department of Justice’s death row is located, the 52-year-old American has filed for a presidential pardon.
A request that is unlikely to succeed, with the Trump administration being the first to revive federal executions for 17 years. Ten people have suffered this fate since July 2020. Among these executions, three took place after Donald Trump’s defeat in the presidential election on November 3, an anomaly. “Traditionally, out of respect for the next administration […] executions do not take place during periods of transition », Explains Robert Dunham, director of the Information Center on the Death Penalty.
A figure at the lowest for 37 years
At the state level, seven people were executed this year: three in Texas and four others respectively in Missouri, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. A figure at the lowest for 37 years. The cause of this drop? The coronavirus pandemic which has forced penitentiary institutions to postpone executions as a safety measure, a precaution for which the US Department of Justice has not opted and who has “Contributed to the creation of a coronavirus cluster in the federal prison complex in Terre Haute”, details the report.
A cyclical effect, but not only. According to a recent survey by the institute Gallup, 43% of Americans are opposed to the death penalty, against 55% in favor. They were almost 80% in favor of it in 1999, a record year with 98 prisoners executed. Symbol of this development, Colorado which, last March, became the 22e State to abolish the death penalty. If the next two years are sure to see a rebound in executions because of this year’s postponements, longer term? “Everything suggests that the figures will remain low in most of the country”, according to Robert Dunham. Forty elected officials of Congress have already called on President-elect Joe Biden to abolish the death penalty at the federal level the day after taking office, on January 20.
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