Shortly after the federal government reinstated executions of convicted inmates, Democratic Representative Ayanna Pressley said capital punishment has “no place in a just society” and introduced a bill aiming to abolish it.
The bill seeks to “prohibit the imposition of the death penalty for any violation of Federal law, and for other purposes.” The legislation that is still short on details is the latest bill to be introduced by the Democrat, who is a member of the group of progressive Democratic congresswomen known as the “Squad,” recently criticized by President Donald Trump for directly opposing his administration’s policies.
“The same racist rhetoric coming from the occupant of the White House, who called for the execution of the #Exonerated5, is what led to this racist, vile policy,” Pressley wrote on Twitter, referring to the President’s past remarks that the wrongly convicted “Central Park Five” should receive the death penalty for their alleged crimes.
“It was wrong then and it’s wrong now. The cruelty is the point – this is by design,” she added, according to CBS News.
The bill, as seen from an image posted by Pressley on Twitter, states that “no person may be sentenced to death or put to death on or after the date of enactment of this act for any violation of federal law.” It also says that those individuals who were sentenced before the bill’s enactment should be re-sentenced for their crimes.
Pressley’s legislation has the support of about a dozen Democrats, including Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Justin Amash, a former member of the Republican party.
It comes after Attorney General William Barr announced on Thursday that the Justice Department would reinstate executions after 16 years of no death penalties, noting that five convicted murderers would be executed in December and January, with other executions to be scheduled afterward.
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