The chief reporter for Guardian US, Ed Pilkington, talks to Anushka Asthana about the history of the federal death penalty, which Donald Trump revived last July. Trump has so far sanctioned the executions of 11 prisoners, with a further two expected to take place by the end of this week. Lisa Montgomery, who was killed by lethal injection this week, was a particularly high-profile case. Subjected to torture and sexual violence as a child, she was suffering from extreme mental illness when she committed a horrific crime. The state of her mental health was not taken into account at her original trial. So why is Trump carrying out so many executions?
Ed tells Anushka that although use of the death penalty is shrinking in the US, it is still employed in many of the former confederate states. You cannot talk about the use of the death penalty, says Ed, without looking at America’s relationship with its racist history and the impact it still has today.
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Photograph: Bryan Woolston/Reuters
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