New Details Emerge Surrounding Federal Executions Under Trump Administration

A recent arti­cle by Associated Press jour­nal­ist Michael Tarm reports new details about the thir­teen fed­er­al exe­cu­tions that took place in 2019 – 2020, includ­ing last-minute clemen­cy appeals for death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers like Brandon Bernard. Mr. Tarm wit­nessed ten of the exe­cu­tions and spoke with a num­ber of indi­vid­u­als who were involved in the process for his sto­ry. As a result of these inter­views, he says that the fuller pic­ture that has emerged shows that ​“offi­cials cut cor­ners and relied on a pli­ant Supreme Court to get the exe­cu­tions done, even when some – includ­ing Trump him­self, in [Mr.] Bernard’s case – agreed there might be valid rea­sons not to pro­ceed with them at all.”

Mr. Tarm recounts that attor­ney Alan Dershowitz plead­ed with then-President Donald Trump to stop the exe­cu­tion of Brandon Bernard, a Texas man who was exe­cut­ed in December 2020. Mr. Dershowitz said he explained to President Trump that Mr. Bernard ​“wasn’t the man he was when [the vic­tims] were killed in 1999 and that he deserved to have his sen­tence com­mut­ed to life in prison.” According to Mr. Dershowitz, President Trump said he wished he could do so but had already promised the vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers that Mr. Bernard would be exe­cut­ed. Mr. Bernard was exe­cut­ed the following day.

Other new details include an autop­sy report obtained by the Associated Press show­ing that Corey Johnson, anoth­er pris­on­er exe­cut­ed under President Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion, suf­fered from pul­monary ede­ma dur­ing his lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion, which result­ed in ​“a painful con­di­tion akin to drowning.” 

At the time President Trump took office in 2016, the last fed­er­al exe­cu­tion had been thir­teen years ear­li­er, in 2003. Billie Allen, a fed­er­al death row pris­on­er, told Mr. Tarm that it was not until 2019 when prison guards at the Terre Haute Federal Correctional Institute began prac­tic­ing exe­cu­tions that pris­on­ers real­ized exe­cu­tions might be sched­uled. ​“Many of us knew Trump was going to keep killing… until he ran out of time,” Allen said. But accord­ing to for­mer Attorney General Bill Barr’s 2022 book, it was AG Barr him­self who sug­gest­ed the resump­tion of exe­cu­tions, not President Trump. He reports that they dis­cussed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment just once when President Trump asked AG Barr why he sup­ports its use. AG Barr explained that President Trump accept­ed his answer that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for bru­tal killings is ​“the only pun­ish­ment that fit[s] the crime.” 

In 2019, AG Barr changed the DOJ Justice Manual poli­cies and the fed­er­al exe­cu­tion pro­to­col to make it eas­i­er to sched­ule and per­form fed­er­al exe­cu­tions. Those Justice Manual changes have now large­ly been rescind­ed under AG Merrick Garland, who has also paused fed­er­al exe­cu­tions while the Department of Justice reviews its exe­cu­tion poli­cies and pro­to­cols. However, the DOJ has sought new fed­er­al death sen­tences and obtained one in August 2023, with the for­mal sen­tenc­ing of Robert Bowers. The DOJ has also con­tin­ued to aggres­sive­ly defend the con­vic­tions and death sen­tences of the remain­ing men on the fed­er­al death row.