Yet in the hours before Salaam spoke at the convention, many Americans were learning for the first time that the DNC had removed its goal of ending capital punishment from its official platform. The issue had previously been enshrined in the party platform for years, with the language in 2016 especially robust: “We will abolish the death penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment,” it read. “It has no place in the United States of America.”