Death penalty was heading toward extinction until Trump
WASHINGTON – The death penalty, which only recently had appeared headed for extinction in the U.S., may be poised for a resurgence.
Attorney General William Barr said Thursday the federal government will resume executions in December after a 16-year hiatus. The announcement followed a Supreme Court term that indicated an increasing receptiveness toward capital punishment now that President Donald Trump’s two appointees are on the bench.
In 2015 the death penalty was under so much pressure that then-justice Antonin Scalia said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if his colleagues outlawed it. Scalia, a conservative who viewed the death penalty as constitutional, died the following year. Around the same time, a top American Civil Liberties Union official said he too saw momentum toward a ruling ending capital punishment nationwide.
Those comments made sense at the time. Executions had been declining steadily since 1999, when a modern-day record 98 people were put to death. Only 20 people were executed in 2016, the lowest number since 1991, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks capital punishment.
That trend drew fuel from multiple sources. Public support had waned as the increased use of DNA evidence underscored the risk of wrongful convictions. In all, 21 states have abolished the death penalty, seven of them in the last decade, according to the center. Four other states have a moratorium imposed by the governor.
Meanwhile, botched executions drew attention to the possibility that inmates might suffer severe pain if lethal-injection drugs didn’t work as planned. Pharmaceutical companies blocked the use of their products for executions, making it harder for officials to get the drugs they needed.
And the Supreme Court imposed limits, outlawing executions of intellectually disabled people in 2002, juveniles in 2005 and child rapists in 2008.
“Resort to the penalty must be reserved for the worst of crimes and limited in its instances of application,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court in the 2008 ruling.
But all that was before Trump became president. His 2016 election let him fill Scalia’s seat with Justice Neil Gorsuch and then replace the retiring Kennedy with Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The two were in the majority this year when the court voted 5-4 to let Missouri give a lethal injection to a man who said his rare medical condition meant he would probably choke on his own blood. Writing for the court, Gorsuch rejected contentions that the injection would violate the Eighth Amendment ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment.
“The Eighth Amendment does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death – something that, of course, isn’t guaranteed to many people, including most victims of capital crimes,” Gorsuch wrote.
That opinion was one of several in the term that indicated the court’s five conservatives would be more resistant to last-minute filings by inmates than the court had been previously.
“Courts should police carefully against attempts to use such challenges as tools to interpose unjustified delay,” Gorsuch wrote. “Last-minute stays should be the extreme exception, not the norm.”