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Something you may have picked up on by now is that Donald Trump<\/strong><\/a> is a bad man whose elevation to the presidency was a net negative for society. Obviously, the examples supporting this claim could literally fill several hundred books, but today, let\u2019s focus on one in particular: the absolutely callous regard he showed for human life while breaking multiple records for federal executions.<\/p>\n While we already knew the stats\u2014the Trump administration executed more people than any administration in 120 years<\/a>, oversaw a federal government that executed more Americans in a one-year period than every state combined<\/a>, and was the first administration since the 1880s<\/a> to put people to death during a lame-duck period\u2014new reporting<\/a> from Rolling Stone<\/em> reveals how little the act of ending 13 lives weighed on him, if it weighed on him at all.<\/p>\n According to the outlet, about a year after signing a bipartisan criminal-reform bill, Trump started \u201ctelling advisers that carrying out capital punishment would insulate him from criticism that he was soft on crime,\u201d according to sources familiar with the matter. His attorney general, Bill Barr,<\/strong> was all too happy to oblige, and in July 2019, ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to resume executions after a 17-year hiatus<\/a>. But while taking a human life, even one that may have committed terrible acts in the past, might have kept another president up at night, it appears that Trump barely gave it a thought, beyond what he thought the executions could do for him politically.<\/p>\n Per Rolling Stone:<\/em><\/p>\n The sum total of his discussions of the death penalty with his top law enforcement officer, Barr says, was a single, offhand conversation. After an unrelated White House meeting, Barr was preparing to leave the Oval Office when, he says, he gave Trump a \u201cheads-up\u201d that \u201cwe would be resuming the death penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s lack of interest in the details had grave repercussions for the people whose fates were in his hands. According to multiple sources inside the administration, Trump completely disregarded the advice of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, an administrative body designed to administer impartial pleas for clemency in death penalty cases and other, lower-level offenses. And Barr says he does not recall discussing any of the 13 inmates who were eventually killed with the president who sent them to the death chamber.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n As reporters Asawin Suebsaeng<\/strong> and Patrick Reis<\/strong> write, \u201cThat means Trump never talked with Barr about Lisa Montgomery, a deeply mentally ill and traumatized person who became the\u00a0first woman executed by the federal government since 1953.\u201d Montgomery\u2014who committed an unspeakable act when she arranged a meeting with a dog breeder and then straggled, stabbed, and \u201ccut the fetus out of the dead woman\u2019s womb\u201d and attempted to pass it off as her own\u2014was reportedly raped weekly by her stepfather by the age of 11, raped by her stepfather\u2019s friends, and raped by her stepbrother. In exchange for services like free plumbing, her mother would allow men to sexually assault her. The stepfather is said to have severely beaten her and caused traumatic brain injuries; per Rolling Stone,<\/em> \u201cMontgomery was diagnosed with, among other conditions, post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociative disorder. MRIs revealed significant brain damage from the childhood beatings,\u201d and psychiatrist and University of Pennsylvania professor Ruben Gur<\/strong> said the physical and mental trauma she endured resulted in her brain being \u201cneither structurally nor functionally sound.\u201d According to Rolling Stone,<\/em> \u201cIt\u2019s unclear whether Trump ever read the petition\u201d her attorneys wrote asking to delay the execution; one of her lawyers told the outlet she is \u201cnot convinced that Montgomery fully understood that she was about to die.\u201d<\/p>\n Then there was the case of Brandon Bernard, who\u2019d been sentenced to death for his role, at the age of 18, in the carjacking and murder of a young couple, Todd and Stacie Bagley. Bernard was not the gang member who shot and killed the Bagleys, but he lit the the car that they were in on fire. More than 10 years after his trial, Bernard\u2019s appellate lawyers argued that the prosecution had withheld key evidence showing that he was not the ringleader of the group but \u201ca confused teenager following instructions from his place in the gang\u2019s lowest tier,\u201d per Rolling Stone.<\/em> One member of the prosecution team wrote an op-ed saying Bernard did not deserve the death penalty. More than half of the jury members who\u2019d sentenced him who were still alive publicly stated that he should be spared. According to Rolling Stone,<\/em> while recommendations made by the Justice Department\u2019s pardon attorney office are not made public, days after it met with Bernard\u2019s attorneys in 2020, \u201cseveral sources told Bernard\u2019s team that the attorney had recommended Trump commute the death sentence to life in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt gave us hope,\u201d says Stacey Brownstein,<\/strong> who served as an investigator on Bernard\u2019s defense. \u201cIt felt for a moment that things were breaking our way.\u201d<\/p>\n In another administration, that might have been enough to save Bernard\u2019s life. But in Trump\u2019s world, it barely registered.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n In the remaining days of the administration, Barr \u201cscheduled a string of back-to-back executions, to squeeze in as many as possible before Biden moved into the White House,\u201d with three occurring in Trump\u2019s penultimate week in office. \u201cThese inmates were being exterminated,\u201d Kelley Henry,<\/strong> an attorney for Montgomery, told Rolling Stone.<\/em> \u201cWhen you see the government flex its power that way\u2014with the cold, callous machinery of death\u2014it\u2019s truly appalling.\u201d She added: \u201cThe administration just didn\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Trump was<\/a> commuting sentences and issuing pardons<\/a> for the convicted criminals who\u2019d worked on his campaign and for his son-in-law\u2019s father, among others.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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