As Reverend Al Sharpton appeared on the final night of the Democratic National Convention to highlight the Exonerated Five, it was a poignant reminder of a reality often overlooked by the DNC – the multitude of injustices within our criminal law system. These five men – Wise, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Antron McCray – all faced wrongful arrests, brutal interrogations, and imprisonment when they were just teens, falsely accused of the rape of a jogger in Central Park. Today, the men, in their late 40s and early 50s, serve as a living testament to the cruelty of Trump’s actions and the lives he sought to dismantle. It was unquestionably a powerful broadcast.
The tension this moment produced was an echo of an underlying dissonance that had permeated the entire convention week. The criminal legal system was continuously presented as an institution for the greater good, a safeguard and provider of fairness to the vulnerable in society. For those familiar with the political maneuvering during an election year, the nuances were not unexpected. The belief within the party that their candidates must embody the principle of ‘law and order’ is deeply ingrained.
But it was ironic to consider that Wise, Salaam, Santana, Richardson, and McCray were once vilified as dire threats to American society, being cast as ‘superpredators.’ This term, loaded with racial discrimination, led to a fear mongering that allowed prosecutors to treat children as adults in the eyes of the court. Their convictions were a product of a time when politicians capitalized on the criminalization and punishment of young people – it was the platform upon which many careers were built.
Among these politicians were Biden and Bill Clinton, who were wildly successful in this arena, and, ironically, were celebrated as heroes at the DNC. Harris, however, has constructed her image as the antithesis to this brutal past. As a prosecutor, she espoused a ‘smart’ approach towards crime, as opposed to a ‘tough’ one. During her run in the 2020 presidential primaries, she pledged numerous criminal justice reforms, labeling mass incarceration as the pressing ‘civil rights issue of our time.’
As a senator, she led the charge in sponsoring and co-sponsoring legislation aimed at overhauling the system to make it fairer and more humane. One such proposal was the abolition of the federal death penalty with provision for new sentences for those awaiting their fate on death row. Yet, despite now standing on the precipice of the presidency, instead of capitalizing on the chance to realize these promises, it appears that both Harris and the Democratic Party have moved the conversation elsewhere.
One particular unfulfilled promise spotlighted by Salaam’s presence at the DNC, was the Democrats’ shift away from their stance on the death penalty. In the aftermath of Salaam’s unjust incarceration, he became a vocal anti-death penalty activist. He relayed his own story as a warning, presenting himself as evidence of the dangers of capital punishment. His claim was that had capital punishment been in effect the year of his trial, he might have been put to death before his innocence was proven.
Yet, the Democratic National Committee has since abandoned this issue. Many Americans were only recently made aware of the DNC’s decision to strip from its platform the aim to end capital punishment. The goal of abolishing the death penalty had been a long-standing party tradition, with clear language in 2016 articulating its opposition.
‘We will abolish the death penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unnatural form of punishment,’ the 2016 platform read, asserting that it had no place in a civilized nation like the United States. The spate of executions under the Trump administration bolted the urgency of Biden’s 2020 pledge to put a stop to federal executions, a commitment which intensified the celebration of his success over Trump.
However, the Democrats’ decision to excise the death penalty from their platform comes as an astonishing turnaround. If the recent wave of federal executions did not receive much attention, it is likely due to the fact that political figures, regardless of their affiliation, have largely avoided discussing it. These executions took place in a gruesome, hasty manner amidst the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, a tactic that stunned even the most dedicated anti-death penalty activists, legal scholars, and defense attorneys.
The moral onus to protest against the death penalty has never been more pressing, yet exactly four years ago, the topic was glaringly overlooked at the Democrats’ virtual convention. From letters exchanged with those on federal death row at that time, it was clear that many leaned heavily on the Democrats as their last hope, noting the party’s silence as Trump went ahead with executing their comrades.
With the Project 2025 on the conservative agenda seeking to carry out the remaining death sentences on federal death row, there is an impending sense of dread. Despite their ominous forewarnings of a potential second Trump administration, Democrats have so far remained alarmingly silent on this crucial matter.
For those who witnessed the federal executions first-hand, the announcement that the DNC no longer opposes the death penalty came as both a disappointment and a sobering reality. While raising considerable doubt, this news alone does not entirely extinguish hope.
Those who survived the executions continue to express a bleak outlook regarding any significant change in the near future. As the political gears slowly turn, the silence surrounding this contentious issue looms large. Thus, the plight of those on death row remains shrouded in uncertainty.