Inside the secret ‘prepping’ to get federal death row ready for a Trump presidency

The Justice Department is “preparing” the federal government’s death row for a resumption of executions in the event that Donald Trump wins the election, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Officials are believed to have visited last week to inspect the so-called “death zone” at Terre Haute Prison in Indiana, where the 40 inmates serving federal death sentences are being held.

No executions have been carried out by the US government during Joe Biden’s term, but Trump has indicated that lethal injections will soon resume if he takes over the killing again. White House.

The execution chamber of the American prison in Terre Haute, Indiana

At the end of his first term, 13 prisoners were put to death in Terre Haute in six months, the largest wave of federal executions since World War II.

Among those pushing for leniency at the time was Kim Kardashian, the reality TV star and criminal justice reform campaigner.

Kamala Harris is expected to continue Biden’s moratorium on the federal death penalty if she is elected.

Billie Allen, 46, one of the inmates on Terre Haute’s death row, has maintained his innocence for 26 years and more than 160,000 people have signed a petition for his release. Amnesty has called on Joe Biden to commute his sentence.

It follows a series of revelations in his case, including alibi evidence not presented at his trial, and a lack of DNA and physical evidence linking him to the murder of a security guard in a 1997 bank robbery.

From death row, Allen called on Biden to take action before leaving office, saying he feared he would be executed if Trump won.

He told DaiyMail.com: ‘It seems like they are preparing. Some guys say it’s getting real. They get ready and check if the equipment still works.

“Some people here go to the law library, others just retreat into their own thoughts, read books or watch TV all day.”

An activist opposing the death penalty protests during a snowstorm outside the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, U.S., January 15, 2021

Billie Allen hopes Joe Biden will commute his sentence

The visiting officials wanted to see the death chamber, the so-called “green mile” where condemned prisoners make their final journey and where they are housed just before an execution.

“They want to see the facilities and make sure you don’t kill yourself before they kill you,” Allen said. “I don’t feel like it, but they want their pound of flesh.

‘They used to allow you to go out alone and feel like a man. Now they drive you, so you don’t even have the ability to walk on your own two feet and go outside, instead of on your back.”

The Federal Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on the visit.

Allen has been in Terre Haute so long that many of the guards who were there when he arrived are long retired.

He said he has a good relationship with those now preparing to possibly resume executions.

“I spent most of my life in prison, so I grew up with them,” he said. “The ones that are here now, I’ve seen them come in as rookies. One of them asked if I knew his father.’

Sister Barbara Battista, right, rings a bell before a minute of silence during a protest against an execution on Terre Haute in 2020

President Donald Trump listens to Kim Kardashian West advocate for criminal justice reform in the East Room of the White House on June 13, 2019

Allen, who is black, was convicted by an almost all-white jury.

The crime was the murder of a security guard during a 1997 bank robbery in St. Louis, Missouri, when he was 19.

Because the shooting occurred during a bank robbery, he was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice and not the state of Missouri.

There was no physical evidence against him and after the trial a witness came forward saying they saw him in a shopping center at the time of the crime.

No federal executions were carried out between 2003 and 2020, but they resumed toward the end of Trump’s first term.

When Biden took over in January 2021, he was the first president to openly oppose the death penalty.

He introduced a moratorium and did not carry out executions.

Anti-death penalty campaigners say they anticipate the “largest federal execution of civilians” in US history if Trump is re-elected – unless Biden commutes some or all death sentences.

Donald Trump wants to extend the death penalty to drug dealers

Kamala Harris calls the death penalty ‘immoral’

In her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris suggested that the death penalty is “immoral, discriminatory, ineffective and a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars,” although she remained silent on the subject in 2024.

Among Americans, support for the death penalty is generally declining.

According to Gallup, support for executions of convicted murderers has fallen from 80 percent in 1994 to 53 percent last year.

In November, Gallup found for the first time that more Americans believe the death penalty is unfair than fair: 50 percent to 47 percent.

In addition to the federal government, the death penalty is legal in 27 states, although most of those states have not carried out executions for years.