President-elect Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday (December 24, 2024) to aggressively pursue capital punishment after President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of most individuals on federal death row, partly to prevent Mr. Trump from moving forward with their executions.
Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Biden’s decision on Monday (December 23, 2024) to convert the sentences of 37 out of the 40 condemned individuals to life in prison without parole, arguing that it was illogical and disrespectful to the families of the victims. Mr. Biden stated that changing their punishments to life imprisonment was in line with the moratorium on federal executions in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.
“Joe Biden just commuted the Death Sentence on 37 of the worst killers in our Country,” he posted on his social media platform. “When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense. Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!”
Historically, presidents have had no role in determining or recommending the punishments that federal prosecutors seek for defendants in criminal cases, although Mr. Trump has consistently sought more direct control over the operations of the Justice Department. The president-elect stated that he would instruct the department to pursue the death penalty “as soon as I am inaugurated,” but he was vague about the specific actions he might take and mentioned that they would target “violent rapists, murderers, and monsters.”
He highlighted the cases of two men on federal death row who had their sentences commuted by Mr. Biden after admitting to killing a woman and a girl.
During his campaign, Mr. Trump frequently advocated for expanding the federal death penalty, including for individuals who kill police officers, those convicted of drug and human trafficking, and migrants who kill U.S. citizens.
“Trump has consistently expressed his belief that the death penalty is an important tool and he intends to utilize it,” said Douglas Berman, an expert on sentencing at Ohio State University’s law school. “But whether any of that can practically happen, either under existing law or other laws, is a significant challenge.”
Mr. Berman suggested that Mr. Trump’s statement at this point appears to be a reaction to Mr. Biden’s commutation.
“I’m inclined to think it’s still more in the realm of rhetoric. Just, ‘don’t worry. The new sheriff is coming. I support the death penalty,'” he remarked.
Although most Americans have historically supported the death penalty for individuals convicted of murder, support has declined over the past few decades, according to Gallup’s annual polling data. Approximately half of Americans were in favor in an October poll, while around 7 in 10 Americans supported capital punishment for murderers in 2007.
Prior to Mr. Biden’s commutation, there were 40 federal death row inmates compared to over 2,000 individuals sentenced to death by states.
“The reality is that all of these crimes are typically handled by the states,” Mr. Berman noted.
One question is whether the Trump administration would seek to intervene in some state murder cases, such as those related to drug trafficking or smuggling. He could also try to take over cases from states that have abolished the death penalty.
Mr. Berman indicated that Mr. Trump’s statement, combined with recent actions by states, could be an attempt to prompt the Supreme Court to revisit a precedent that considers the death penalty as a disproportionate punishment for rape.
“That would take decades to unfold. It’s not something that will happen overnight,” Mr. Berman stated.
Prior to one of Mr. Trump’s rallies on August 20, his prepared remarks released to the media mentioned that he would announce his intention to seek the death penalty for child rapists and child traffickers. However, Trump did not deliver the statement.
One of the individuals highlighted by Mr. Trump on Tuesday (December 24, 2024) was ex-Marine Jorge Avila Torrez, who was sentenced to death for killing a sailor in Virginia and later pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbing of an 8-year-old and a 9-year-old girl in a suburban Chicago park several years earlier.
The other individual, Thomas Steven Sanders, was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of a 12-year-old girl in Louisiana, shortly after shooting the girl’s mother in a wildlife park in Arizona. Court records indicate that he confessed to both murders.
Some families of victims expressed anger at Mr. Biden’s decision, but the president had been under pressure from advocacy groups urging him to make it harder for Mr. Trump to increase the use of capital punishment for federal inmates. The ACLU and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were among the organizations that praised the decision.
Mr. Biden left three federal inmates to face execution. They are Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist killings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history.
Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Michelle L. Price, and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
Published – December 25, 2024 06:54 am IST
