'These Executions, Disturbing as They Are, Have Flown Largely Under the Radar'
DECEMBER 9, 2020
CounterSpin interview with Liliana Segura on Trump's execution spree
JANINE JACKSON
Janine Jackson interviewed the Intercept’s Liliana Segura about Trump’s execution spree for the December 4, 2020, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: It’s so astonishing—at a time we feel ourselves nearly numb to astonishment—that it generated a Snopes factcheck: Could it be that the Trump administration executed more people in five months than the federal government executed during the previous five decades?
It is true; and indeed, things are at such a pass that it’s almost eerie that Trump isn’t bragging night and noon about the spree of state killings—three in four days over the summer, and now ramping up to a level unprecedented from a lame-duck White House since the days of Grover Cleveland, who had been, law professor Austin Sarat reminded recently in Slate, an executioner himself as a New York sheriff.
Not content to schedule state killings practically up to the day Biden takes office, Trump’s Justice Department has also just changed the rules to allow executions by electrocution and firing squad—this at a time when many states have abolished the death penalty, and more and more people say they oppose it.
Our next guest has reported on the death penalty, sentencing and US prisons for much longer than Trump has been in office. Investigative journalist Liliana Segura now reports for the Intercept. She joins us now by phone from Nashville. Welcome to CounterSpin, Liliana Segura.
More:
https://fair.org/home/these-executions-disturbing-as-they-are-have-flown-largely-under-the-radar/
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