Letter to President-Elect Joseph R. Biden, Jr. - Pressley Leads Lawmakers in Calling on President-Elect Biden to End Death Penalty on First Day in Office

Letter

Dear President-Elect Biden,

We write to urge you to end the use of the federal death penalty on your first day in office. Your historic election with record turnout represents a national mandate to make meaningful progress in reforming our unjust criminal legal system. Ending the barbaric and inhumane practice of government-sanctioned murder is a commonsense step that you can and must take to save lives. We respectfully urge you to sign an executive order on Day 1 to place an immediate moratorium on the country's cruel use of the death penalty and signal your commitment to dismantle its use altogether.

As you know, capital punishment is unjust, racist, and defective. The United States stands alone among its peers in executing its own citizens. The barbaric punishment denies the dignity and humanity of all people, but it is disproportionately applied to people who are Black, Latinx, and poor. For example, Black people make up less than 13 percent of the nation's population while accounting for more than 42 percent of those on death row.1 A nationwide study found that at least 1 in 25 people sentenced to death are innocent.2 Research also reveals that capital punishment does not deter crime.3 Hence, there is no just reason to continue the death penalty.

The current administration has weaponized capital punishment with callous disregard for human life. In the middle of our current public health crisis, the Department of Justice resumed federal executions and executed more people in six months than the total number executed over the previous six decades.4 In November, a group of bicameral legislators wrote a letter to Attorney General Barr, calling for a halt to all scheduled federal executions in the remaining days of the Trump Administration.5 Since then, three people have been murdered, including two individuals in the last week alone.

As the 117th Congress gets underway, we will work diligently to advance Congresswoman Pressley's H.R. 4052, legislation to permanently abolish the death penalty and require the resentencing of those currently sentenced to death. Additionally, we will continue to use our oversight authority to investigate the use of lethal injection drugs and its violation of the Eighth Amendment as evidenced by the tireless work of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the Committee on Oversight and Reform.

On January 20th, you can clearly demonstrate your commitment to eliminating the death penalty as laid out in your criminal justice reform plan. With a stroke of your pen, you can stop all federal executions, prohibit United States Attorneys from seeking the death penalty, dismantle death row at FCC Terre Haute, and call for the resentencing of people who are currently sentenced to death. Each of these elements are critical to help prevent greater harm and further loss of life.
While eliminating the death penalty will not fix our broken criminal legal system, it is a significant step toward progress. We urge you to prioritize justice on Day 1 of your administration and end the use of the death penalty.

Sincerely,

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