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The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
Thursday, November 1,2018 3A
Under Trump, federal
death penalty cases up
BY JIM MUSTIAN
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Before a
suspect was even publicly
named, President Donald
Trump declared that who
ever gunned down 11 people
in a Pittsburgh synagogue
should “suffer the ultimate
price” and that the death
penalty should be brought
back “into vogue.”
Trump has largely got
ten his wish, at least on the
federal level, with death
penalty cases ticking back
up under his Justice Depart
ment after a near-morato-
rium on such prosecutions in
President Barack Obama’s
last term, when he directed
a broad review of capital
punishment and issues sur
rounding lethal injection.
Trump’s attorney gen
eral, Jeff Sessions, has so
far approved at least a
dozen death penalty pros
ecutions over the past two
years, according to court fil
ings tracked by the Federal
Death Penalty Resource
Counsel, with cases ranging
from the high profile to the
relatively obscure.
They include the man
charged with using a rented
truck to fatally mow down
eight people on a New York
City bike path a year ago;
three men charged in a fatal
armored truck robbery in
New Orleans; a gang sus
pect in Detroit charged with
“murder in aid of racketeer
ing”; and a man charged
with fatally shooting a tribal
police officer in New Mexico
on the nation’s largest Amer
ican Indian reservation.
The tally could grow
higher over the next two
months as federal prosecu
tors await Sessions’ deci
sion in several other cases,
including against the alleged
synagogue shooter, Robert
Bowers, who faces federal
hate crime charges and 11
counts of murder.
By comparison, in
Obama’s final year in office
the Justice Department
authorized just one capital
prosecution, that of Dylann
Roof, the white suprema
cist who fatally shot nine
black people in 2015 during
a church service in Charles
ton, South Carolina.
But while the Justice
Department under Trump
has increased death pen
alty prosecutions, the num
bers are not entirely out of
line with those earlier in
the Obama administration
under Attorney General
Eric Holder, who approved
11 capital prosecutions in
2009 and at least 13 in 2012.
And both the Trump and
Obama administrations
pale in comparison to that of
President George W. Bush
and his attorney general
John Ashcroft, who in 2003
alone signed off on capital
prosecutions against more
than three dozen defen
dants, at times overruling
his own prosecutors when
they recommended against
seeking capital punishment.
What makes Trump
different, death penalty
experts say, is that he pub
licly advocates for the ulti
mate punishment in specific
cases.
“I think they should very
much bring the death pen
alty into vogue,” Trump told
reporters Saturday shortly
after news came of the
DARRON CUMMINGS I Associated Press
President Donald Trump waves after arriving in Indianapolis
to speak at the 91st Annual Future Farmers of America
Convention and Expo, Saturday, Oct. 27, in Indianapolis.
synagogue shooting. “Any
body that does a thing like
this to innocent people that
are in temple or in church.
We had so many incidents
with churches. They should
really suffer the ultimate
price.”
And he took to Twitter just
a day after last year’s Man
hattan bike path attack to
call suspect Sayfullo Saipov
a “Degenerate Animal” and
argue he “SHOULD GET
DEATH PENALTY!”
Trump also said this year
that capital punishment
should be used to prosecute
drug traffickers. Sessions
followed a day later with a
memo urging prosecutors
to seek the death penalty
“for certain drug-related
crimes,” including kill
ings occurring during drug
trafficking.
“If we’re to be a nation of
laws, then the legal process
has to be allowed to play
itself out without being sub
ject to political manipula
tion,” said Robert Dunham,
executive director of the
Washington-based Death
Penalty Information Center.
“Charging decisions should
be made based on the evi
dence, not based on politics
and not based on political
pressure.”
The Justice Department
did not immediately respond
to a request for comment.
Trump was a vocal pro
ponent of the death penalty
for decades before taking
office, most notably in 1989
when the real estate mag
nate took out full-page
advertisements in New York
City newspapers urging
elected officials to “BRING
BACK THE DEATH PEN
ALTY” following the rape of
a jogger in Central Park. “If
the punishment is strong,”
he wrote at the time, “the
attacks on innocent people
will stop.”
Five Harlem teenagers
were convicted in the Cen
tral Park case but had their
convictions vacated years
later after another man con
fessed to the rape. The city
agreed to pay the so-called
Central Park Five $41 mil
lion more than a decade
after their exoneration — a
settlement Trump blasted as
“outrageous.”
Polls show a majority of
Americans still back the
death penalty, but support
has been declining in recent
years.
A 2017 Gallup poll showed
55 percent of Americans
supported the death penalty
for a person convicted or
murder, the lowest percent
age in 45 years.
The death penalty
remains legal in 30 states,
but only a handful regularly
conduct executions. Texas
has executed 108 prisoners
since 2010, far more than
any other state.
But such executions on
the federal level have been
rare. The government has
put to death only three
defendants since restoring
the federal death penalty
in 1988, the most recent of
which occurred in 2003,
when Louis Jones was exe
cuted for the 1995 kidnap
ping, rape and murder of a
young female soldier.
In 2014, following a
botched state execution in
Oklahoma, Obama directed
the Justice Department to
conduct a broad review
of capital punishment and
issues surrounding lethal
injection drugs. It remains
unclear today what came of
that review and whether it
will change the way the fed
eral government carries out
executions.
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EVAN VUCCII Associated Press
President Donald Trump speaks during an event on the South Lawn of the White House
in Washington, to acknowledge the final passage of tax overhaul legislation by Congress,
Dec. 20, 2017.
House races show America’s
gender, racial differences
BY LISA MASCAR0
Associated Press
WASHINGTON —
Perhaps nowhere is the
choice facing voters next
Tuesday more vividly on
display than in the battle
for control of the U.S.
House. Democrats are
fielding more women and
minority candidates than
ever, while Republicans
are trying to hold their
majority with mostly
white men.
The disparity high
lights a trend that has
been amplified under
President Donald Trump,
with the two parties
increasingly polarized
along gender and racial
lines as much as by issues.
The result is that, in an
election season playing
out against the backdrop
of bomb threats, violence
and a charged immigra
tion debate, the parties
are presenting voters
starkly different pictures
of American leadership.
Democrats have nomi
nated more than 180
female candidates for
the House, a new record.
But while voters could
send more than 100 of
them to victory, Repub
licans could have fewer
women than now in their
ranks next year due to
retirements and tough
races, according to elec
tion analysts. Overall, nearly
9 in 10 House Republicans
will be white men when the
new Congress convenes in
January.
The racial divide is even
starker. House Republicans
now count just over a dozen
minority members, a num
ber that’s not expected to
change much after the elec
tion. The lack of minorities
in the conference comes
into sharp visual focus when
House Republicans gather
in a large group, as they did
last December when they
celebrated the passage of
tax cuts with Trump at the
White House.
Meanwhile, African-
American, Latino and Asian-
American lawmakers make
up almost half the House
Democratic caucus. And for
the first time, less than half
the Democratic candidates
for the House are white
men, and the Democrats
are poised to send the first
Native American and Mus-
lim-American women to the
House. It’s what the Reflec
tive Democracy Campaign
calls a “historic shift.”
After Tuesday’s election,
it’s likely that 87 percent of
Republicans in the House
will be white men, com
pared to just 37 percent
for Democrats, said David
Wasserman, who analyzes
races for the Cook Political
Report.
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