Thirteen. That’s the number of people Trump ordered executed off death row shortly right before he left office. More than ten administrations combined. Each time, wracked with survivor’s guilt, Billie Allen questioned if he’d be next. “How can I keep fighting when a piece of me died with each of my friends?” he thought. “Why were they killed instead of me?”
Allen is on federal death row over a 1997 murder-robbery he’s maintained he didn’t commit. He knew “innocence” wouldn’t exempt him from Trump’s killing spree - irregularities and lack of evidence defined the cases of those already executed.
According to Rolling Stone, Trump suggested reviving hangings and televising killings. He’s called for the execution of “everyone who gets caught selling drugs” and people who leak information about him. Project 2025 aims to expand the death penalty to non-homicide crimes and execute the remaining 40 people on federal death row. Allen included.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party removed death penalty abolition and reform from their platform for the first time in 12 years. As both major political parties competed to be the “toughest” on crime, people like Allen are the human cost.
Federal death row is 38% Black, more than double the population of Black people in this country. In a system dedicated to legalized lynchings and criminalized Blackness, anyone can be next.