Brandon Bernard: First execution of Trump's final days goes ahead
The federal execution of a death row inmate went ahead on Thursday, the first of five before the end of Donald Trump's presidency.
Kim Kardashian West was among those urging clemency for Brandon Bernard.
Bernard, 40, was convicted of murder when aged 18 and is the youngest offender to be executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years.
If all five take place, Mr Trump will have overseen the most executions by a US president in more than a century.
It would bring to 13 the total of federal executions since July.
The executions break with an 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions amid a presidential transition. Joe Biden becomes president on 20 January.
Bernard directed his last words to the family of the couple he killed, according to the Associated Press news agency. "I'm sorry," he said. "That's the only words that I can say that completely capture how I feel now and how I felt that day."
The Brandon Bernard case
Bernard was pronounced dead at 21:27 local time (02:27 GMT) on Thursday, following a lethal injection at a penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
He was given the death penalty for his involvement in the murder of Todd and Stacie Bagley in June 1999.
He was one of five teenagers accused of robbing the pair and forcing them into the back of their car in Texas.
They were shot in the car by 19-year-old accomplice Christopher Vialva before Bernard set the car alight.
Defence lawyers say both of the Bagleys probably died before the car was set on fire.
An independent investigator hired by the defence said Stacie was "medically dead" before the fire.
However, government testimony during the trial claimed that although Todd Bagley died instantly, Stacie had soot in her airway, signalling that she had died from smoke inhalation and not the gunshot wound.
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Bernard's lawyers claim he feared what would happen to him if he refused to follow the orders of Vialva, who was executed in September.
Others involved in the incident were given prison sentences as they were under 18 and classed as juveniles.
Bernard's lawyers argued that he should be given life in prison without parole, as, throughout his time in jail, he has maintained a good record and worked with outreach programmes to stop people from getting involved in crime.
Who has advocated for him?
The federal prosecutor who defended Bernard's death sentence had called for Bernard to see out his sentence in prison.
In an opinion piece published in the Indianapolis Star, Angela Moore wrote: "Having learned so much since 2000 about the maturation of the human brain and having seen Brandon grow into a humble, remorseful adult fully capable of living peacefully in prison, how can we say he is among that tiny group of offenders who must be put to death?"
Five of the surviving nine jurors called for Mr Trump to commute Bernard's death sentence.
Tens of thousands of other people urged the president to grant Bernard clemency, including senators Richard J Durbin and Cory Brooker.
On Thursday, leading lawyers Allen Dershowitz and Ken Starr also joined his defence team.
Reality television star Kim Kardashian West sent numerous tweets about Bernard's case to her followers in the run-up to the execution, urging them to get behind the cause and raise awareness.
Kardashian West is studying to be a lawyer in California and has previously helped sway criminal cases.
In March she visited the White House with three women whose jail terms were cut by President Trump.
As President Donald Trump's days in the White House wane, his administration is racing through a string of federal executions.
Five executions are scheduled before President-elect Joe Biden's 20 January inauguration - breaking with an 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions amid a presidential transition.
And if all five take place, Mr Trump will be the country's most prolific execution president in more than a century, overseeing the executions of 13 death row inmates since July of this year.
The five executions are to begin this week, starting with convicted killers 40-year-old Brandon Bernard and 56-year-old Alfred Bourgeois. They are both scheduled to be put to death at a penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Kim Kardashian urges Trump to halt execution
Attorney General William Barr has said his justice department is simply upholding existing law. But critics have said the move is concerning, coming just weeks before Mr Biden - who has said he will seek to end the death penalty - takes office.
"This is really outside the norm, in a pretty extreme way," said Ngozi Ndulue, director of research at the non-partisan Death Penalty Information Center.
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Here's what you need to know about President Trump's last-minute rush of executions.
site : https://zenodo.org/communities/voir-mulan-2020-streaming-vf-film-complet/
What is current policy in the US?
Since the federal death penalty was reinstated by the US Supreme Court in 1988, executions carried out by the national or federal government in the US have remained rare.
Before Mr Trump took office, only three federal executions had taken place in this period.
All were carried out under Republican President George W Bush, and included inmate Timothy McVeigh, convicted of the Oklahoma City federal building bombing. Since 2003, there have been no federal executions at all.
US states have continued to execute inmates in state prisons, putting a combined 22 death row inmates to death last year. But state executions are also on a downward trend.
A growing number have moved to abolish capital punishment altogether, and the majority have either formally banned the practice or have not put any inmates to death in more than a decade.
site : https://zenodo.org/communities/regarder-tenet-film-streaming-complet-vf-vostfr/
Popular opinion, too, has shifted away from capital punishment. A November 2019 Gallup poll found that 60% of Americans supported life in prison over the death penalty for the first time since the survey began more than 30 years ago.
"Public support for the death penalty is at a decades-long low," Ms Ndulue said.
Further problems have emerged with the methods of execution, sourcing drugs used for lethal injections, and the costs of decades-long court battles and appeals.
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