Five men were executed in one week. Why is Kamala Harris suddenly silent on the death penalty? – Mother Jones

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Freddie “Khalil” Owens. Marcellus “Khalifah » Williams. Emmanuel Littlejohn. Travis Mullis. Alan Eugene Miller.

The five men were executed within a week in five different states, one Political scientist at the time Austin Sarat condemned it as “one of the worst waves of executions the United States has seen in three decades.”

The highest-profile execution took place Tuesday, when Missouri executed Marcellus Williams, who had maintained his innocence for decades. The execution took place after the prosecutor’s office, during the 1998 murder trial, admitted that the evidence had been misused and therefore requested that the conviction be overturned. Miller’s execution in Alabama also received intense media attention this week due to the state’s use of nitrogen gas, a method that many have compared to torture.

The five executions have once again brought the issue of capital punishment, long criticized as unjust and unconstitutional, back into public discourse, with supporters of the death penalty calling for a national reckoning. Many pointed to studies that have repeatedly shown that people of color, and primarily those with intellectual disabilities, are far more likely to be sentenced to death, despite little evidence that this punishment deters crime. .

“The United States is in the midst of a national re-examination of capital punishment in a way that was completely unpredictable,” Sarat told me in a phone call this week.

“What is driving this national reconsideration? These are not sudden moral conversions on the part of supporters of the death penalty. This is a growing perception that the death penalty system in the United States is failing in its operation.”

But amid the extraordinary spate of executions this week, Vice President Kamala Harris has remained curiously silent on the issue of state-sanctioned violence and the death penalty. For some, the apparent silence is out of step with Harris’ deep history of opposition to the death penalty, which includes her promise as San Francisco’s district attorney to never charge anyone with the death penalty. She also campaigned on a promise to establish a federal ban during her first run for president in 2019.

Yet with the 2024 presidential election virtually a draw — and familiar Republican attacks that she’s soft on crime — Harris’ agenda appears to have erased any mention of her stance on capital punishment. When contacted for comment by Mother JonesHarris’ press team did not respond.

Sarat said any reluctance by Harris to weigh in on the issue, even with the extraordinarily high number of executions that have taken place this week, could reflect a change in the political climate compared to four years ago.

“The political landscape was different in 2020,” says Sarat. “This campaign took place in anticipation and aftermath of the murder of George Floyd and the recognition of the need to address serious racial inequalities. »

He added: “Abolitionists surely want Kamala Harris to speak out against the death penalty, but they want something more. They wanted her to be elected president of the United States so she could actually do something about the death penalty. »