WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th August, 2021) Seventeen Democratic senators have sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to abolish the Federal death penalty for all crimes, Senator Dick Durbin said on Monday.
"US Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and US Senators Patrick Leahy and Cory Booker... today led 14 of their Senate Democratic colleagues in urging the Department of Justice to take further steps to end the federal death penalty once and for all," Durbin said in a press release.
In their letter to Garland, the senators praised the recent decision to impose a moratorium on federal executions pending a review of death penalty policies and procedures and called on him to also withdraw all pending death notices and authorize no new ones while the review was underway.
"There are serious concerns about arbitrariness in the application of the death penalty, its disparate impact on people of color, and the alarming number of exonerations in capital cases. These concerns... support halting its use - including prohibiting federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty - during the review process," the letter said
In July, Garland imposed a moratorium on federal executions pending a formal review supervised by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, the release noted.
