Death Under Trump
“Warden instructs the witnesses”: An Execution Night Timeline by Hour Photo Story © Death Penalty Photo Project
By Lana Nauphal
On January 6th, five people died during the violent pro-Trump insurrection that stormed the U.S. Capitol. On that same dreadful day, the United States recorded its highest daily COVID-19 death toll of the pandemic thus far: in 24 hours, 3,865 lives were lost. Over 375,000 Americans have died of the hands of the virus; at the hands of the police, 1,127 individuals— a full 28 percent of whom were Black— were killed in 2020. Death is pouring out of America; death is pouring out of the Trump presidency. And yet still, in the midst of one of the most vicious, murderous years in American history—a year of his very own making— President Trump continues to demand for even more senseless, avoidable death: by way of the federal death penalty.
“In the witness viewing room”: An Execution Night Timeline by Hour Photo Story © Death Penalty Photo Project
Federal executions in the United States had been on pause for 17 years before Trump ordered them to resume in July of 2020—Louis Jones, an inmate from Texas, was the last to be killed by lethal injection in 2003. Trump has since overseen ten executions, and three more inmates face imminent death before he is to leave office on January 20th. In this current lame duck period, when a president customarily leans towards mercy and carries out rightful pardons, Trump is breaking with a 130-year old precedent of pausing executions during presidential transitions; he insists instead on inciting even more violence, and spilling even more blood. If the remaining executions are to go ahead, as they almost inevitably will, Trump will have presided over the most executions by a United States president in more than a hundred years.
“Gurney is placed at the viewing window”: An Execution Night Timeline by Hour Photo Story © Death Penalty Photo Project
It is troubling to note that a great number of inmates on death row are diagnosed with intellectual disabilities—and that two-thirds of such vulnerable defendants are Black. Both Lisa Montgomery, who faces execution on the 12th of January, and Cory Johnson, who faces execution on the 14th, are believed to suffer from intellectual disabilities, as a result of severe abuse they experienced as children. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eight Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment and is thus unconstitutional. But States were left to decide how to define an intellectual disability, and so these particularly inhumane executions continue on.
“A curtain is pulled to hide the execution team”: An Execution Night Timeline by Hour Photo Story © Death Penalty Photo Project
In all cases, the death penalty tragically arrests the convict’s journey to reckoning, repentance, and restitution— and this was perhaps most heartbreakingly epitomized by the execution of Brandon Bernard on December 10th, 2020. Bernard’s scheduled death by lethal injection sent shock-waves through society, and up until the very last minute of his life, media sites were inundated with desperate calls for clemency. Bernard was a teenager in 1999 when he participated in the carjacking and murder of Stacie and Todd Bagley and was subsequently sentenced to death. He spent the next twenty years as a model prisoner, expressing nothing but deep remorse for his crime. He publicly apologized to the victims’ families as part of his endeavor for atonement. In the end, all his work towards healing and rehabilitation, which moved millions across the country, remained in vain. Both Trump and his timely stacked Supreme Court denied Bernard’s stay of execution.
“People vigil against the execution” : An Execution Night Timeline by Hour Photo Story © Death Penalty Photo Project
On the final evening of a death row inmate’s final day, they are taken away from the prison’s general population and given their last meal in solitude. They are then granted a final visitation with friends and family and a final opportunity to use the phone. Protestors might gather outside with signs, or set up a vigil with candles. The warden leads the prisoner to their final holding cell, where they are left to await death— either by injection, firing squad, electrocution, gas or hanging. None of these methods are painless, none are humane, and all are still legal in the United States. Visitors pool into the viewing room as the prisoner is brought in and makes a final statement. The time of execution has arrived. When the inmate is pronounced dead, a death certificate will be issued by the coroner, and the manner of death circled will be "homicide."
