In the final days of his presidency -- amid calls for his resignation -- President Trump intends to carry out three federal executions. On Friday he plans to kill Dustin Higgs, who in recent weeks has been corresponding with me from death row gq.com/story/trump-ad…
The power to take the life of one of its citizens is the most significant power granted to government.
Donald Trump has undertaken a historic wave of executions during the last six months - including largely unprecedented lame duck executions gq.com/story/trump-ad…
Prior to the Trump Administration, there had not been a single federal execution since 2003.
In last 100 or so years, there had been 37 total federal executions.
The Trump Administration has carried out 10 killings in just 6 months (and wants 3 more) gq.com/story/trump-ad…
Later today the federal government hopes to kill Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, who suffers brain damage and severe mental illness. A judge ordered a competency hearing, but Trump's Admin still hopes to kill her today gq.com/story/trump-ad…
On Thursday, the Trump Admin plans to kill Corey Johnson, who lawyers argue should be ineligible for death because he is intellectually disabled gq.com/story/trump-ad…
And then on Friday, just 5 days before the Inauguration, the Trump Administration plans to kill Dustin Higgs -- who I've gotten to know a bit during these last few weeks gq.com/story/trump-ad…
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I've said before that it's a mistake for media to constantly use "unarmed" as a shorthand to signal to readers "this shooting was potentially bad" -- it erases cases like Philando Castile (victim being "armed" does not mean a shooting was justified) and leads to errors like these
A victim should not need to be "unarmed" in order for their death to merit journalistic and societal scrutiny. When the government kills someone, there should be scrutiny
Same for non-fatal shootings like Jacob Blake. The government has deployed fatal force against one of its citizens. In a country where firearms are legal, and video often shows police not telling the full truth, "armed/unarmed" often a less than useful distinction
A lot of the analysis of whether or not "defund the police" messaging was effective seems to overlook any discussion of the number of municipalities that have diverted $ from police budgets in response to activist. Seems a crucial component of "effectiveness"
Anyway, got into the core and ideology of the demand in my piece from Minneapolis on George Floyd theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Believe it or not, the goal of most activism on the left...isn't to win House seats for Nancy Pelosi
Last year Samuel Little was declared America's deadliest serial killer: 93 murders over 4 decades.
It immediately struck me as a massive failure of law enforcement. Today we launch INDIFFERENT JUSTICE, chronicling the failures that empowered his impunity washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/…
For this series, @markberman@KnowlesHannah and I collected thousands of pages of police and court records, diving deep into dozens of murders (and hundreds of arrests) -- many of which had never before seen much outside scrutiny washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/…
What emerged was a portrait of a fragmented and indifferent criminal justice system that allowed a man to murder without fear of retribution by deliberately targeting those on the margins of society — drug users, sex workers and runaways washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/…