Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Stop the Execution of Brandon Bernard

Brandon Bernard, sentenced to death at just 18 years old, is slated to be executed today as President Trump ramps up executions. We must abolish the death penalty. 

Otto Fors

December 10, 2020
Facebook Twitter Share
Photo: Brendan Smialowski

Brandon Bernard is about to be killed by the state. He is scheduled to be executed for a crime he committed 21 years ago, when he was just 18 years old. In June of 1999, Bernard and four other teenagers were involved in a deadly attempted carjacking in the city of Killeen, Texas. The three youngest accomplices, aged 15 and 16, received prison sentences, and all but one has been released. But Bernard and Christopher Vialva, just 18 and 19 years old, respectively, were sentenced to death. 

Vialva was executed by lethal injection in September. Bernard, now 40 years old, is scheduled to be executed tomorrow, but in the past year, pressure has mounted on the Department of Justice to commute his sentence to life imprisonment. His lawyers claim that the government suppressed the opinion of an expert, who would have testified that Bernard’s held the lowest status in the group, and that he was merely the “getaway driver.” The testimony would have changed the verdict handed down by the jury, according to the lawyers. 

But on Tuesday, a federal judge denied the request to stay Bernard’s execution. Judge James Sweeney of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Indiana contended that the expert opinion did not change the sentence handed down by the jurors, and that the execution should proceed. The decision paves the way for him to be killed on Thursday. 

Five out of the nine jurors on the case have also expressed regret regarding the verdict, and have voiced their support for Bernard’s sentence being commuted due to his clean record during his 20 years in prison. The case has also received interest from supporters not involved in the case, including celebrities and attorneys. Kim Kardashian West, who successfully lobbied Trump to grant clemency to prisoners in the past has tweeted in support of Bernard, and circulated a petition to her followers. Tens of thousands of supporters have now sent letters to President Trump.

Bernard’s execution comes at a time when the Trump administration is ramping up its use of the death penalty. If Bernard is put to death, he will be the ninth federal prisoner to be executed since the federal government resumed executions in July after a seventeen-year hiatus.

Brandon Bernard (photo: helpsavebrandon.com)

If four additional planned executions proceed before Biden’s inauguration Trump will have presided over the most federal executions out of any president in 130 years. These executions will amount to over a quarter of all federal death row inmates. 

Another aspect of these executions is unprecedented: their timing. Trump is the first president in 130 years to oversee executions during the so-called lame-duck period, the transitional months before a new president takes office. Past presidents have, by contrast, tended to offer more clemencies and commutations towards the end of their term, particularly in the last few months. President Obama famously commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning during the final days of his presidency. Instead of allowing people like Brandon Bernard to plead their case, Trump is callously allowing them to be put to death, with Attorney General William Barr simply saying that the administration is upholding the law. 

Brandon Bernard is also one of four Black people slated to be killed before Trump leaves office, highlighting the racial disparities involved in death sentences. Black people, despite making up just over 13 percent of the U.S. population, make up over 41 percent of the inmates on death row. Black defendants are three times more likely to receive a death sentence than a white defendant in similar circumstances, and around 90 percent of people who receive a death sentence are too poor to afford their own attorney. 

The death penalty is a racist, barbaric tool of the state. Brandon Bernard must be freed, and the death penalty must be abolished. 

Facebook Twitter Share

Otto Fors

Otto is a college professor in the New York area.

United States

Far Right Imposed Shutdown Represents Deeper Crises Only Workers Can Resolve

The United States is on the verge of a government shutdown. The fact that a minority far right in Congress has forced this, largely over disagreements with military spending, shows that the U.S. regime is in a historic crisis. Now more than ever, workers must intervene for their own interests.

Sam Carliner

September 29, 2023

Neither Trump nor Biden Represent the Interests of the Striking Workers

Donald Trump skipped the second GOP debate to go to Michigan to speak on the UAW strike. This, one day after Biden became the first U.S. president to walk a picket line, represents the on-going fight between the parties to win influence over the working class.

Enid Brain

September 29, 2023

The Deadliest Year for U.S.-Mexico Border Crossings Occurred during Biden’s Administration

The humanitarian crisis at the border was created by capitalism. Voting for a lesser evil won’t save the Latin American working class; it will take international, political and strategic solidarity across borders to build a combative immigrants’ rights movement.

Paul Ginestá

September 28, 2023

Scabs Will Not Pass: Defend the UAW Strike With Organized Grassroots Power

The Big Three are escalating their use of scabs. The rank and file are fighting back.

Jason Koslowski

September 27, 2023

MOST RECENT

The Big Three Are Using Layoffs to Punish the UAW and Undermine the Strike

The Big Three are retaliating against the UAW by laying off thousands of its members at plants across the country. Defeating these attacks will require the self organization and mobilization of all the workers.

James Dennis Hoff

September 28, 2023
President Biden visits striking UAW workers in Michigan.

Biden’s Picket Line Visit Doesn’t Mean He Is On Our Side

President Biden’s visit to the UAW picket line shows the strength of the strike — and why it should remain independent from him and the Democrats.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

September 27, 2023

Toward a Revolutionary Socialist Network

In this article Warren Montag and Joseph Serrano respond to our call for a network for a working-class party for socialism. 

Warren Montag

September 27, 2023

China’s Rise, ‘Diminished Dependency,’ and Imperialism in Times of World Disorder

In this broad-ranging interview, originally published in LINKS, Trotskyist Fraction member Esteban Mercatante discusses how recent global shifts in processes of capital accumulation have contributed to China’s rise, the new (and old) mechanisms big powers use to plunder the Global South, and its implications for anti-imperialist and working-class struggles today.

Esteban Mercatante

September 22, 2023