The US Attorney General has set the first federal execution to be carried out in 17 years on 13 July. Three executions have been set over five days in July, starting with 13 July, and a fourth for 28 August, Amnesty International recalled.
The US death penalty system is deeply flawed and arbitrary, with many cases affected by racial bias and poor legal representation.
As national figures for 2019 executions and death sentences represented the second lowest yearly totals in 28 and 46 years, respectively, the resumption of executions at the federal level after 17 years would go against the US and global trends away from the death penalty. The death penalty is not the solution.
European Union stuns executions
SPUTNIK
“The European Union strongly opposes the decision of the United States Department of Justice to reinstate the federal death penalty after a 17-year hiatus. We urge the United States Administration to reconsider it and not proceed with federal executions that will take place from July 13, “said the spokesman for European diplomacy, Peter Stano.
According to the Twenty-Seven, “this decision runs counter to the general trend, in the United States and around the world, to abolish the death penalty, either by law or in practice.”
The statement reiterates the EU’s firm opposition to the death penalty, calling it “cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, incompatible with the inalienable right to life, which does not provide an effective deterrent to criminal conduct and is irreversible” .
“The European Union will continue to work towards a universal abolition of the death penalty,” adds the text.
The US Department of Justice announced last June 25 that federal executions would resume from July 13, after a 17-year recess. The US Attorney General, William Barr, ordered to schedule the executions of five people sentenced to death, accused of murder and, in some cases, torture and rape, of minors and the elderly.