�WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th December, 2020) The US Federal government has carried out more executions of prisoners this year than all 50 state governments combined, the Death Penalty Research Group said in a year-end report on Wednesday.
"The ten people executed under the federal death penalty in the second half of 2020 exceeded the number executed by all of the states combined, the first time in the history of the United States in which the federal government carried out more civilian executions than did the states," the report said.
Seven states have carried out a combined total of seven executions this year, according to the latest data in the report.
Although executions in the United States are not uncommon at the state level, the US federal government had not carried out an execution for 17 years before July.
US President Donald Trump's administration in 2019 ordered the resumption of capital punishment for federal crimes.
Alfred Bourgeois, found guilty of beating his two-year-old daughter to death, was the tenth inmate to be executed by the federal government on December 11. His death came soon after the US Supreme Court had rejected Bourgeois' request to halt the execution.
