Throughout his first time period in workplace, Trump oversaw a sequence of federal executions unparalleled in trendy historical past.
United States President-elect Donald Trump has promised to step up the usage of the loss of life penalty throughout his second time period in workplace, saying he’ll go after “rapists, murderers, and monsters”.
Trump’s announcement on Tuesday got here after outgoing President Joe Biden used his presidential pardon powers to cut back the sentences of almost all federal prisoners on loss of life row to life imprisonment with out parole.
“As quickly as I’m inaugurated, I’ll direct the Justice Division to vigorously pursue the loss of life penalty to guard American households and kids from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters,” Trump mentioned in a social media submit. “We will probably be a Nation of Regulation and Order once more!”
Throughout his first time period in workplace, Trump resumed federal executions after an almost 20-year pause, overseeing the executions of 13 people. That determine was larger than any president in trendy historical past.
Whereas folks within the US proceed to assist the death penalty for crimes similar to homicide, that assist is at its lowest level in a long time, dropping from 80 p.c in favour in 1994 to 53 p.c in 2024, in line with Gallup polling. In the identical interval, opposition has risen from 16 p.c to 43 p.c.
Supporters of the loss of life penalty say capital punishment may give relations of victims of violent crimes a way of closure and acts as a deterrent towards crime though research have discovered little proof for the latter.
“The ache and trauma we’ve got endured during the last 7 years has been indescribable,” Heather Turner, whose mom was killed throughout a 2017 financial institution theft in Conway, South Carolina, mentioned in a social media submit blasting Biden’s determination.
Opponents say harmless folks have been wrongly executed earlier than they have been exonerated, that the method for executing somebody is lengthy and expensive and the loss of life penalty has been wielded disproportionately towards folks of color.
Throughout his 2024 presidential marketing campaign, Trump leaned closely into nativist assaults on immigrants that portrayed them as harmful criminals and mentioned he would seek the death penalty for undocumented immigrants who commit crimes similar to homicide and rape towards US residents.
Immigrants commit violent crimes at a decrease charge than folks born within the US, and immigrant rights teams see dark undertones in Trump’s fixation on violent acts dedicated by immigrants.
The three federal prisoners on loss of life row whose sentences Biden selected to not commute have been all discovered responsible of hate-motivated crimes.
They’re Dylann Roof, who killed 9 Black congregants of the Mom Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina in 2015; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who carried out the deadliest anti-Semitic assault in US historical past when he gunned down 17 congregants on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, killing 11.
