Even when I was a practicing Christian, I did not regard the United
States as a Christian nation. Words like Vengence and retaliation
were cloaked in terms of Justice. But a flawed judicial system cannot
issue Justice.
Our courts channel an ever growing number of government sanctioned
slaves, people stripped of their rights and even of their
citizenship, and added to our Forced Labor pool.
The Justice System is for the wealthy and the favored. Just look at
who Donald Trump is pardoning. Knaves and theives
carl Jarvis
On 12/25/20, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
US executes two more federal inmates, three others scheduled
https://themilitant.com/2020/12/19/us-executes-two-more-federal-inmates-three-others-scheduled/
BY JACQUIE HENDERSON
Vol. 84/No. 51
December 28, 2020
Dec. 10 protest outside federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where
U.S. gov’t carries out executions. Socialist Workers Party member Samir
Hazboun, second from left, talks with Indiana University students. “Use
of death penalty is a bipartisan attack on the working class,” he said.
MILITANT/JACQUIE HENDERSON
Dec. 10 protest outside federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where
U.S. gov’t carries out executions. Socialist Workers Party member Samir
Hazboun, second from left, talks with Indiana University students. “Use
of death penalty is a bipartisan attack on the working class,” he said.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Rallying across the street from the federal prison
here Dec. 10, 40 people protested the execution of Brandon Bernard
before the U.S. government put him to death. The following day federal
inmate Alfred Bourgeois was also executed, the 10th carried out since
the Donald Trump administration resumed use of capital punishment in
July after a 17-year hiatus.
Prisoners on death row “are human beings who are capable of many things,
of changing,” retired Unitarian minister Bill Breeden told the rally,
“but with this terrible threat hanging over them, often for decades.”
Bernard, an African American, was convicted for his role in the 1999
murder of two youth ministers, Todd and Stacie Bagley, in Texas when he
was just 18 years old. He was the youngest person to be executed in
nearly 70 years.
Prior to Bernard’s execution by lethal injection, over 500,000 people
signed petitions urging President Trump to commute his sentence. This
included a high-profile appeal from Kim Kardashian West asking the
president to spare his life.
Five of the nine jurors who had sentenced Bernard to die, and Angela
Moore, who in one of his appeals had been the prosecutor who defended
the order to execute, said they had changed their minds, now calling for
clemency. “Having seen Brandon grow into a humble, remorseful adult
fully capable of living peacefully in prison,” Moore wrote in an op-ed
in the Indianapolis Star Nov. 18, “how can we say he is among the tiny
group of offenders who must be put to death?”
Despite all this, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a motion to stay his
execution.
In sober remarks right before he was put to death, Bernard said, “I’m
sorry. That’s the only words that I can say that completely capture how
I feel now and how I felt that day.”
Demonstrators participating in the Dec. 10 vigil came from several
cities in Indiana; Chicago and Winnetka, Illinois; Louisville, Kentucky;
and Minneapolis.
Commenting on her experiences protesting capital punishment, Audria
Hettinger, a student at Indiana University in Bloomington, told the
Militant, “We partnered with Yvette Allen, sister of Billie Allen who is
on death row in Terre Haute. Together we organized protests last weekend
in Bloomington, Indianapolis and Terre Haute. Then seven students
carpooled to the vigil here today against the killing of Brandon
Bernard.” Indiana University student Brian Hancock added, “We are
against all these executions. Some of us will stay to protest tomorrow
against the scheduled execution of Alfred Bourgeois and we’ll be back
protesting others.”
Samir Hazboun gave greetings to the rally from the Socialist Workers
Party. “The administration has escalated these federal executions now,
but the use of the death penalty is truly a bipartisan attack on the
working class,” Hazboun said. “We are for abolishing the death penalty.
We are against all these brutal federal executions and those done by
state governments as well.”
The U.S. rulers use capital punishment to intimidate working people, by
showing them the brutal tools they have — and will use — against workers
who mount resistance to boss and government assaults.
Bourgeois, a former truck driver in Louisiana, was executed the next
day. He had been convicted in 2002 of murdering his 2-year-old daughter.
The Justice Department had scheduled his execution for last January but
a federal court put a stay on this because of Bourgeois’ severe mental
disabilities. Then the Supreme Court refused to delay the execution any
further.
The U.S. government has scheduled execution for three more federal
inmates next month — Jan. 12 for Lisa Montgomery, who would be the first
woman on federal death row to be put to death in nearly 70 years; Jan.
14 for Cory Johnson; and Jan. 15 for Dustin Higgs.
Front Page Articles
No layoffs! Cut workweek with no cut in weekly pay!
Workers and farmers need to chart our own road forward
New Rochelle nurses fight for more staff, new contract
India farmer protests grow in fight to stop gov’t assaults
Family leads protests for arrest of cop who killed Casey Goodson Jr.
Socialist Workers Party campaigns widely with ‘Militant,’ action program
Feature Articles
Protests across Kurdistan demand unpaid wages, jobs, services
Also In This Issue
Venezuelan elections deal blow to US rulers’ attacks
Bob Cantrick, communist cadre for over 5 decades
Walmart workers give ‘blood money’ bribes to build SWP
US executes two more federal inmates, three others scheduled
Editorials
Holiday greetings to workers behind bars
On the Picket Line
Rolls-Royce jet engine workers strike to defend their jobs
Books of the Month
Teamsters show ‘with proper leadership, workers can overcome’
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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--
Carl Sagan “Why do we put up with it? Do we like to be criticized? No,
no scientist enjoys it. Every scientist feels a proprietary affection
for his or her ideas and findings. Even so, you don’t reply to critics,
Wait a minute; this is a really good idea; I’m very fond of it; it’s
done you no harm; please leave it alone. Instead, the hard but just rule
is that if the ideas don’t work, you must throw them away.” ― Carl
Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
