The Trump administration tries to restart the execution of federal convicts after a 20-year hiatus, but a judge blocks the move because the method of lethal injection would violate a 1994 law that mandates use of the same procedure as the state where the conviction happened. Bill Whittle grapples with the quandary that puts the death penalty at odds with federalism and state’s rights.
Bill Whittle Now with Scott Ott is a production of our Members. Join them now.
Our Caribbean cruise May 15-18 is filling up fast and Bill wants to meet you aboard the Navigator of the Seas for three days of fun, laughter, and fascinating conversation, with people who are already your friends…you just haven’t met them yet. Learn more and book your cabin.
9 replies on “Court Blocks Trump Effort to Execute Federal Convicts, Because…Federalism!”
Bill, I’m with you regarding the absurd length of time someone spends on death row, but I’d like to add another reason for why the time needs to be drastically shortened. I believe that the victims (in this case the families of those murdered) deserve quicker resolution as well. While nothing will ever bring their loved ones back, they should not have to endure a lifelong emotional roller coaster that endless appeals and other delaying tactics bring.
Not to mention, quicker resolutions have a much greater impact on society and would-be murderers.
Being from Massachusetts, I completely recognize this story 50 miles off as The Resistance trying to deny the President a PR win by inflicting a Blue Law at the Federal level. All blues laws state that you can except you can’t, but where you can’t because you can. It’s flak, pure and simple. And we have a guy like Charlie Baker in MA, a giant among midgets. We have those same creeps at the Federal level who, rather than laughing this out the window and pulling the lever, would try to profit from the extended confusion period of inaction.
“Beyond doubt” is an unattainable threshold for legal convictions. In other words, it is a logical fallacy to conclude that one can prove no doubt exists about any event. Consider all those who, to this day, doubt the moon landing occurred as advertised.
I don’t understand why Democrats wish to block executions. It seems to me that those dead voters are easier to manipulate to their cause.
As for the death penalty itself, I support it. I think it’s a moral obligation to have the death penalty and to execute it fairly. I also think we need to be as certain as current forensic science allows that every person we execute really is guilty.
I would therefore support a temporary moratorium on executions until every death penalty case that has DNA evidence available, or every case that is more than X years (20?) old that has forensic evidence should be subjected to a full forensic review. A conviction of 20 years ago, even though fully fair and legal under the standards of its time, might not survive a modern forensic examination. I think we need new laws at both the state and federal levels (for state and federal crimes, respectively, not for federal to trump state) for automatic forensic reviews every 10 or 20 years. Not that the government should be required to re-try or re-investigate every case, but forensic science has advanced so fast and so decisively that where possible, current standards ought to be applied to old cases to resolve ambiguities. Some criminal convictions will be upheld and reinforced as even more certain. Others will be exonerated. Both outcomes are good.
I love y’all but you both (Scott and Bill) missed a significant detail here. The death penalty law for federal prisoners (i.e., matching the state) has nothing to do with the individual convicts or their cases. It has ONLY to do with the physical location of the prison where the execution takes place. (I’m not even sure that every state has a federal prison.) Federal prisoners don’t always serve their time in the same state where they live or where their crime was committed or where they were convicted. Furthermore, not all federal prisons have the facilities to execute prisoners. Thirdly, federal prisoners can be and are moved to other federal prisons in other states.
So all the law under discussion says is that if you execute a federal prisoner in Texas, it should follow the rules of Texas state executions. The purpose of the law is to preclude arguments about whether a convict is executed legally within a particular state. (I think such arguments would be specious, but it would take up a lot of court time in all 50 states and end up with different results in different states and would end up in the Supreme Court.)
I’m no fan of capital punishment where any form of forensic evidence is in play or computer bases evidence. Too many cases of evidence tampering or negligence.
In Australia the first man hung on forensic evidence was later found innocent; the woman’s hair evidence that hung him turned out to be dog hair in a DNA test 60 years later.
In the last execution in Australia Ronald Ryan was hung for shooting a prison officer in an escape with with another prisoner, Peter John Walker, but 50 years later there are still questions if he fired the fatal shot because with a half dozen witnesses, prison officers and a couple from a car jacked car could not agree and the gun was never tested. Ryan was a bad dude but there were clear problems with what should have been a simple case.
The robbed people and banks while on the run with the prison officers gun. Walker also killed someone while on the run, and did an additional 24 years.
Some of the left wing states don’t have a method of execution at all or refuse to define one so intentionally blocking all executions. NM, ND, MN,WI IA, WI, Il, NY, ME, WV, MA, RI, NJ, DC, AK, & Hi all have no method defined under the law. Thus the 1990’s law blocks most executions. The new Federal method used is a simple drink with a nice flavour and a tasteless narcotic that just puts you to sleep. Its an unrecoverable overdose.
I look at capital punishment as the fulfillment of someone choosing to take another’s life and thus, by his/her choice, deciding to forfeit his/her own life. Their choice, not that of the state.