Death penalty

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich's office said it has asked the Arizona Supreme Court to set a briefing schedule before filing execution warrants.

"There is no place today for the death penalty in this commonwealth, in the South or in this nation," Governor Ralph Northam said.

Trump's DOJ resumed federal capital punishment after a 17-year hiatus, overseeing more executions than any president in 120 years.

Activists and civil rights groups are calling for Joe Biden to act following an unprecedented run of federal executions during the final months of the Trump administration.

Under current law, executions in the state must be carried out by lethal injection unless an inmate chooses electrocution.

A Statehouse committee has voted to advance a bill that would make electrocution the default execution method.

Thirteen death row inmates were put to death in seven months after the Trump administration resumed federal executions last July.

Virginia will become the 23rd state in the U.S. to ban capital punishment once Governor Ralph Northam signs the legislation.

Death penalty disproportionately affects the African-American community and those suffering from mental illnesses, or a history of childhood abuse, figures show.

The Virginia Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that would abolish the death penalty.

Dustin Higgs was the 13th and final person put to death since the Trump administration restarted federal executions.

Eleven inmates have been put to death by the U.S. government since federal executions were resumed in July last year, ending a 17-year moratorium.

Enough is enough. No line-drawing exercise can avoid the plain judgement that Johnson is fit to be executed, and the government should carry out its mandate to do so posthaste.

"Every person is created in the image and likeness of God, and we encourage everyone to work to rid the death penalty from our state and federal laws and to develop a greater appreciation for the sacred dignity of every human life," said the archbishops.

Dustin Higgs is scheduled to be put to death five days before President-elect Joe Biden, a death penalty opponent, is inaugurated.

Montgomery's scheduled execution on January 12 would have been the U.S. government's first execution of a woman in almost 70 years.

Dustin John Higgs, 48, is the last of the federal inmates scheduled for execution before Joe Biden is inaugurated.

The U.S. government carried out more executions than all 50 U.S. states combined for the first time in the nation's history in 2020, according to the Death Penalty Information Center's year-end report.

As much as we may understand the desire to avoid the taking of any life, the Trump DOJ's efforts to seek the death penalty in certain cases was both moral and legally correct.

Convicted murderer Alfred Bourgeois was put to death on Friday, becoming the second man to be executed in two days.

The four inmates scheduled for execution in the weeks before Biden's inauguration are Alfredo Bourgeois, Lisa Montgomery, Cory Johnson and Dustin John Higgs.

Bourgeois, 55, was convicted of capital murder in 2004 for the 2002 death of his daughter at the Naval Air Station-Corpus Christi in Texas.

The 56-year-old has spent the last 17 years on death row after murdering his two-year-old daughter, JG, in Texas in 2002.

Bernard, 40, died by lethal injection in Terre Haute, Indiana, for a crime committed in 1999, sparking a debate about the death penalty.

Bernard's execution on Thursday has seen many famous faces call for an end to the death penalty.

"I wish I could take it all back, but I can't," he said, referring to his part in the 1999 kidnapping and killing of youth ministers Todd and Stacie Bagley.

Bernard, 40, is the ninth inmate executed since the Trump administration resumed federal executions over the summer.

A last-minute attempt to stop the execution of Brandon Bernard was unsuccessful.

Thanks in part to Kim Kardashian West, a Change.org petition to halt today's planned execution has nearly 400,000 signatures.

Bernard, 40, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Thursday.