Is it right for government officials to have absolute power that can determine life or death? Federal Government to Conduct First Lame-Duck Federal Executions in More Than a Century
In a dramatic deviation from historical practices, the Trump Administration is poised to conduct the first federal executions during a lame-duck presidency in more than a century. The Department of Justice has scheduled three federal executions during the administration’s lame-duck period: Orlando Hall on November 19, Lisa Montgomery on December 8, and Brandon Bernard on December 10. The last time the U.S. government carried out an execution between a presidential election and the inauguration of the new president for a federal crime was nearly 132 years ago, on January 25, 1889, when the outgoing administration of Grover Cleveland (pictured) executed Richard Smith, a Choctaw Indian, for a murder on tribal land in Arkansas. The federal rush to execute conflicts sharply with national trends that show declining support for capital punishment. The Trump administration's excessive execution at the end of its term seems to be conscious of President-elect Joe Biden. Biden, a devout Cath