US Attorney General Merrick Garland recently ordered a moratorium on federal executions and a Justice Department review of the death penalty.

The move followed a decision by the Trump administration Justice Department to revive federal executions by lethal injection in 2019, using a one-drug protocol. The federal government then carried out 13 executions from July 2020 to January 2021. During his confirmation hearing, Garland said that exonerations of people wrongly convicted have given him “pause.” He also noted that President Biden is strongly opposed to capital punishment. “A most terrible thing happens when someone is executed for a crime that they did not commit,” Garland said.

My comment:  An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth may have been normal in primitive society, but it is totally wrong for a normal, civilized modern State.   The death penalty should be banned – everywhere.  It is obscene and immoral to see the Federal government involved in killing individuals, no matter what they are accused of, and especially if the victim is mentally ill and the evidence against him is contested.   I believe that Epicurus would agree.