The Daily Background

The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty released the following op-ed today, on the connection between the death penalty and the US Attorney firings:

At least three U.S. attorneys – Paul Charlton of Arizona, Margaret Chiara of Michigan, and Kevin Ryan of California – were dismissed after clashing with the Justice Department over death penalty policy. Although the final decision has always rested with the U.S. Attorney General, a U.S. attorney’s recommendation that death should not be sought has traditionally been given great deference – until recently.

During the six years that President Bush has been in office (a span of time marked by Mr. Gonzales and his predecessor, former Attorney General John Ashcroft) the federal death penalty was sought 95 times, or about 16 times a year. That’s twice as often as the 55 times it was sought during the eight years of the Clinton Administration, roughly seven times a year.

Ominously, the Bush Department of Justice has sought the federal death penalty in states where voters, through their elected representatives, have rejected capital punishment. These jurisdictions include Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Dakota, and Vermont, as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. (New York, a state without a functioning state death penalty, has a stunning 51 potential federal death penalty cases in the works.)

Perhaps the most telling statistic: The size of federal death row has tripled since Bush took office, while state death sentences and executions are down sharply from their historic highs in the late 1990s.

Hat tip- Jeralyn. As you may recall, I wrote a little bit about this situation earlier, in the following item: Were 2 US Attorneys fired because the White House wanted more executions?

Also, as an aside, you may be interested in the following chart-post: Chart: Executions in Texas by Governor, 1976-2007 which shows how pro-death penalty President Bush was when he was governor of Texas.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog