BEHINDTHE

Friedman said in a statement: “We hope that upon awakening the country will be as outraged as we are.”

Trump’s only annoyance was probably that the first federal execution in nearly 20 years had taken so long.

When four black boys and one Latino boy, aged 14 to 16, were on trial in 1989 for raping a white woman in Central Park, Trump spent $85,000 to run a fullpage advert in four New York newspapers calling for their executions.

After DNA evidence later exonerated the five youngsters, Trump never retracted his statement or apologised. In the years before his election he called for the death penalty for several high-profile criminals. He considered simple execution too humane, telling a US TV programme in 2010: “Now they give a slight injection so that they don’t have pain when the needle goes in, to slowly put them to sleep. These people have to be treated very, very severely.”

Once he took office Trump pushed to revive the federal death penalty.

Dr Alice Storey, a lecturer in law at Birmingham City University who has studied the US death penalty, believes the timing of the move is a campaign ploy ahead of November’s presidential election.

She says: “It could well be that Trump has his eye on the election and wants to send a message to his supporters. If Trump wins a second term I think we’re very likely to see many more federal executions.”

In March, Colorado became the 22nd state to abolish the death penalty.

Reviving the federal death penalty