Like many of you, we're shocked at President Trump's executive order, "Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety," and believe it is a publicity stunt based on his usual rhetoric of fear and hatred. His intention is to reverse the progress that has been made in slowing down, and in some places ending, the killing of those imprisoned by the state. But knowledge is power. We know that the arguments he made to justify expanding the death penalty are simply false and contradict what we know years of empirical evidence and research have shown.