"Do We Deserve to Kill?"

After a 17-year hiatus, in the summer of 2020, Attorney General William Barr announced that the U.S. government would resume federal executions. Two people, Brandon Bernard and Alfred Bourgeois, were executed the week of December 7, 2020 as a result of this federal action. Three more people face execution before President-Elect Biden assumes office in January 2021. In a nation conflicted by issues of racial justice, freedom, and the protection of civil liberties, several questions have emerged: What is the threshold for the death penalty? Is it the commission of a crime? Simply being present at the scene of a crime? Hiding evidence? Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative says, “I think the threshold question is, ‘Do we deserve to kill?'”