Op-Eds Highlight Disparities in Federal Death Penalty, as 1,000 Faith Leaders and the European Union Urge Justice Department to Halt Executions

As the scheduled July 13, 2020 date for the first federal executions in 17 years approaches, faith leaders, diplomats, and legal experts have asked the federal government to call them off. 1,000 faith leaders from across the country have urged President Trump and Attorney General Barr to halt the executions. They are joined by the European Union, which on July 10 also issued a statement strongly opposing the resumption of federal executions. Complementing their efforts, two recent op-eds by death-penalty experts describe a federal death-penalty system that, they say, is plagued by endemic bias and arbitrariness.

On July 7, more than 1,000 faith leaders from a variety of religious backgrounds issued a statement in opposition to the four scheduled executions. They wrote: “we call on President Trump and Attorney General Barr to stop the scheduled federal executions. As our country grapples with the COVID 19 pandemic, an economic crisis, and systemic racism in the criminal legal system, we should be focused on protecting and preserving life, not carrying out executions.” The statement was signed by bishops, pastors, rabbis, and others representing a range of Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist sects.

One signatory, Carlos Malavé, Executive Director of Christian Churches Together, said, “As an Evangelical, I am heartbroken to see our country return to killing its citizens. We have seen so much death in recent months and people are hurting. Restarting executions during a pandemic should be the farthest thing from our minds.” Archbishop Charles C. Thompson from the Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis, which includes Terre Haute, where federal death row is located, issued a separate statement noting, “The taking of life, no matter how ‘sanitary’ or ‘humane’, is always an act of violence. While the Church is certainly concerned with the soul of every person, including those on death row, I make this plea against the death penalty out of ultimate concern for the eternal soul of humanity.”

From Brussels, Belgium, the European Union released a statement saying it “strongly opposes the decision of the United States Department of Justice to resume the federal death penalty after a 17-year hiatus.” The resumption of executions, the EU said, “runs counter to the overall trend in the United States and worldwide to abolish the death penalty, either by law or in practice.” The EU called the death penalty “a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment [that is] incompatible with the inalienable right to life, fails to provide effective deterrence to criminal behaviour, and is irreversible.” The European Union said it “stands firmly and unequivocally by the victims of crimes and their families, and supports the application of effective, non-lethal punishments.”

A July 7 op-ed in The Hill by NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) Litigation Director Samuel Spital and a Bloomberg Law commentary by DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham on July 8 criticized the planned executions, citing extensive evidence that the federal death penalty has been arbitrarily and discriminatorily applied.

Supreme Court Issues Sweeping Decision Affirming Tribal Sovereignty, Vacates Oklahoma Conviction and Death Sentence

The United States Supreme Court has vacated the conviction of a Native American death-row prisoner in Oklahoma, giving dramatic effect to a sweeping new decision that affirmed the sovereignty of the the Muscogee (Creek) Nation over tribal lands that span the eastern half of the state.

In an historic ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma, the Court declared that Congress had never disestablished the Creek Reservation that was created by a series of treaties between 1832 and 1866 in the aftermath of the federal government's forcible relocation of the Creek and four other Indian nations from their homes in Alabama and Georgia. The treaties promised the Creek Nation a "forever homeland" in the Indian Territories that subsequently became part of the state of Oklahoma. The McGirt decision affirmed that these lands were still "Indian Country," as defined by federal law, within which Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction to attempt to try tribal members for serious offenses.

In a one-sentence per curiam decision that cited McGirt, the Court affirmed a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit that had voided Patrick Dwayne Murphy's murder conviction and death sentence imposed in the Oklahoma state courts. On August 8, 2017, the Tenth Circuit granted Murphy habeas corpus relief, finding that the murder, which occurred in Henryetta, Oklahoma, had been committed on lands within the borders of the Creek Reservation. The Court wrote: “Because Mr. Murphy is an Indian and because the crime occurred in Indian country, the federal court has exclusive jurisdiction. Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction.”

Murphy (pictured below) still faces prosecution for murder in the federal courts, but federal prosecutors will not be able to seek the death penalty.

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