When the Rev. Al Sharpton took the stage to introduce members of the Exonerated Five on the last night of the Democratic National Convention, it was a brief acknowledgment of the injustices within our criminal legal system that the DNC had largely avoided addressing.
“Thirty-five years ago my friends and I were in prison for crimes we didn’t commit,” Korey Wise said. As teenagers, Wise, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Antron McCray were wrongly arrested, harshly interrogated, and imprisoned for the rape of a jogger in Central Park. Donald Trump notoriously spent tens of thousands of dollars on full-page ads in the New York Times calling for the death penalty. “Our youth was stolen from us,” Wise said. “Every day as we walked into the courtroom, people screamed at us, threatened us because of Donald Trump.”
“He wanted us dead,” Salaam, now a New York City Council member, said. Now in their late 40s and early 50s, the men formerly known as the Central Park Five stood as a living testament to Trump’s cruelty and the futures he tried to destroy.
The moment was impactful. However, it also revealed a conflict that had been present throughout the convention. Throughout the week, the criminal justice system – and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s involvement in it – had been portrayed as a force for good: a protector and dispenser of justice for society’s vulnerable. Harris was lauded by numerous sheriffs, state attorneys general, and members of the U.S. security state as the leader who would ensure the safety of Americans. “Crime will continue to decrease when we elect a prosecutor to the White House instead of a convicted felon,” President Joe Biden declared in his speech on Monday.
For those familiar with the Democrats’ maneuvers in an election year, all of this was not surprising. The party’s belief that their candidates must embody the principles of law and order is a deeply rooted tradition. Yet Wise, Salaam, Santana, Richardson, and McCray were once vilified as imminent threats to American society – not just labeled as “felons” but also as “superpredators,” a racist and dehumanizing myth that empowered prosecutors to treat children as adults. Trump’s targeting of these teenagers was indeed reprehensible and harsh. However, their convictions arose from an era where politicians built their careers on criminalizing and punishing young individuals like them. Few were as successful as Biden and Bill Clinton, both of whom were celebrated as heroes at the DNC.
Over the years, Harris has positioned herself as a solution to these dark times: a prosecutor committed to being “smart” rather than “tough” on crime. During the 2020 presidential primary, she pledged a series of criminal justice reforms, labeling mass incarceration as “the civil rights issue of our time.” As a senator, she introduced and supported legislation to make the system more equitable and humane, including a bill to abolish the federal death penalty and provide new sentences for all federal death row inmates. However, now that the presidency is within reach, instead of seizing the opportunity to implement such reforms, Harris and the Democratic Party have shifted away from the conversation. The appearance of the Exonerated Five was overshadowed by another set of speeches that glorified prosecutors and demonized criminals.
Unmet Promises
Salaam’s presence specifically highlighted a particular policy that the Democratic National Committee has abandoned. In the years following his wrongful imprisonment, he became a vocal opponent of the death penalty, sharing his story with audiences nationwide. When the New York State Legislature debated amending the state’s invalidated death penalty law, Salaam served as a cautionary tale. If capital punishment had been in effect when he was on trial, he might have been executed before proving his innocence.
However, in the hours leading up to Salaam’s address at the convention, many Americans learned for the first time that the DNC had removed its objective of ending capital punishment from its official platform. The issue had been a part of the party platform for years, with the language in 2016 particularly robust: “We will abolish the death penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment,” it stated. “It has no place in the United States of America.”
Although the platform does not always align with a presidential candidate’s beliefs, the decision to eliminate any mention of the death penalty is concerning. At the very least, it raises doubts about Harris’s commitment to ending capital punishment, something she had vowed to do during the 2020 primary and took legislative action on as a senator. At worst, it signifies something much more ominous, especially for the 40 men on federal death row.
The omission is particularly troubling for those who witnessed Trump’s unprecedented series of federal executions in the final months of his term. Under Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr, 13 individuals were executed at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute. The last three executions occurred consecutively in the week leading up to Biden’s inauguration. These cases epitomized the cruelty and injustice of the death penalty. Lisa Montgomery, the sole woman under federal death sentence, had a life marked by severe trauma and mental illness. Corey Johnson was executed despite a Supreme Court ban on executing individuals with intellectual disabilities.
Dustin Higgs, the final man to be executed, was put to death for three murders committed by another individual who has since denounced the government’s case as unfounded. The executions carried out under Trump’s administration were a horrifying chapter that underscored the urgency of Biden’s promise to end the federal death penalty. However, the recent removal of the death penalty from the DNC platform has left many feeling betrayed and disappointed.
Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Policy Project, believes that while the platform revision may not signal a change in policy, it raises concerns about the priorities of the current administration. The lack of emphasis on the death penalty issue in the platform has left many questioning the commitment to fulfilling Biden’s campaign pledge.
The executions during Trump’s tenure were largely overlooked by politicians on both sides, despite the reckless manner in which they were carried out amidst the early days of the Covid pandemic. The absence of vocal opposition to the death penalty during this time was criticized by those on federal death row, who felt abandoned by the Democrats.
With the threat of conservatives’ Project 2025 looming over federal death row inmates, the silence from Democrats on this critical issue is concerning. The omission of opposition to the death penalty from the DNC platform has been met with disappointment and frustration by activists and advocates who see it as a missed opportunity to address a grave injustice.
Despite the disappointment, activists like Bill Breeden remain hopeful that the Democratic party will prioritize ending the death penalty. The lack of political courage to address this issue is seen as a failure to stand up for what is right and just. The trauma inflicted by the federal executions on spiritual advisers like Yusuf Nur underscores the need for a more vocal and principled stance against capital punishment.
The invisibility of the death penalty issue has allowed Biden to backtrack on his promises, aided by the reluctance of Democrats to confront the issue head-on. The lack of public awareness and discussion surrounding executions has enabled the government to operate in secrecy, away from public scrutiny. As the fight against the death penalty continues, advocates are calling for greater transparency and accountability in addressing this grave human rights issue. Please rephrase this sentence.
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