If, like me, you dread the prospect of a second Trump presidency, please sign the ACLU petition urging President Biden to commute the sentences of federal death row inmates to life in prison before he leaves office.

You can Google “commute the row” or read the excellent free article in the Guardian here, which contains a link to the petition.

According to the Guardian and the ACLU, Donald Trump oversaw more executions than any president in the past 120 years, including the thirteen on death row in the last six months of his first term. It is likely that early in his second term Trump will kill all 40 inmates currently on federal death row, as advocated in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

There is abundant evidence that those sentenced to death are disproportionately members of racial minorities, poor, suffering from mental illness, survivors of abuse, and victims of inadequate counsel or procedural malfeasance. Whether or not some were wrongfully convicted, it is long past time for the United States to end the barbaric practice of state executions.

Contemplating the foreseen and unknowable consequences of this month’s disastrous election may seem overwhelming and even paralyzing. But we can call on President Biden, as one of his last official acts, to spare 40 lives and deny Trump another killing spree.

Judy Olinick

Middlebury