Federal Government REALLY Expanding the Death Penalty: Should We Be Concerned?

You may have seen the headlines about the federal government allowing capital punishment to be carried out by firing squad, gas, and electrocution now.

Ominous, at best, in this political climate.

I like to read the actual proposals.

It is so much worse than just that headline.

https://www.justice.gov/ag/media/1437806/dl?inline

Highlights:

-Completely getting rid of clemency appeals. Just not a thing anymore.

-Judge can issue a death penalty ruling, even if the jury isn't unanimous on guilty/not guilty

-Expediting the "lengthy appeals process." This was left very vague what the process would actually look like going forward.

-The Federal government can extradite people from states without the death penalty, to states with the death penalty

-Taking death penalty decisions as a whole away from the discretion of the state, and putting it solely at the federal level

-Getting rid of the prisoner's right to choose their method of execution

-Getting rid of a trial to determine if the prisoner is eligible for the death penalty (death penalty cases currently have 2 trials. Are they guilty? And do we think they actually deserve the death penalty?)

-Expanding the type of crimes eligible for the death penalty:

"The Department should consider offering legislation to correct gaps and deficiencies in the authorization of capital punishment for the most heinous crimes, including, inter alia, murders of law enforcement officers; murders by aliens illegally in the United States; and murders constituting or committed in the commission of hate crimes, stalking, material support for terrorism, or domestic violence."

So basically, we're removing all the state guardrails for the death penalty, removing most of the oversight from the process, getting rid of clemency, getting rid of unanimous jury of your peers convicting you for a death sentence, putting the decision to execute citizens completely at the discretion of the Federal Government, and expanding what you can get executed for.

And we're bringing back good ol' fashioned shooting people, and gassing them.

Technology has come so far, I'm sure they have some creative ideas for administering capital punishment sentences for electrocution.

I haven't seen this discussion anywhere, and I don't feel good about it.