The Department of Justice announced today that it has scheduled five executions in December and January; the first federal executions since 2003.
“The federal death penalty is a disgrace,” says Death Penalty Focus President Mike Farrell. “Riddled with the same problems we find in the state systems, it is racially biased, arbitrary, and applied not to the ‘worst of the worst,’ but to those who suffered traumatic childhoods, are mentally ill or intellectually disabled. After a 16-year hiatus, who profits from executing these prisoners?”
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there are 62 people on death row, all men, except for one woman. Of those 62, 35 are people of color. In addition, only one is there for a terrorism crime.
The five men scheduled for execution are Daniel Lewis Lee, Lezmond Mitchell, Wesley Ira Purkey, Alfred Bourgeois, and Dustin Lee Honken.