Trump Plans to Resume Death Penalty in Reversal of Biden Policy
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump is saying he will reverse his predecessor’s policy that disfavors the death penalty as soon as he is inaugurated next month.
President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the death penalties of 37 murderers convicted in federal court. Instead, they will spend life in prison.
Trump responded the next day with a post on his social media site Truth Social saying, “As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters. We will be a Nation of Law and order again!”
Trump criticized Biden’s commutation of the death sentences by saying it was an insult to the families of the murder victims.
“Joe Biden just commuted the Death Sentence on 37 of the worst killers in our Country,” Trump wrote in his post. “When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense.”
Historically, presidents were granted limited control over the Justice Department by the separation of powers described in the Constitution. Most death penalty decisions and policies were left to the state and federal supreme courts.
Trump said while he was running for president that he would expand use of the death penalty against killers of police officers, persons who engage in drug and human trafficking and migrants who murder American citizens.
A majority of Americans, or 53%, favored the death penalty for murder in a Gallup poll this month. In 1994, 80% of Americans favored the death penalty.
The majority support stops at murder and does not include other crimes Trump mentioned.
Biden said when he announced he would commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 men in federal prison condemned to death, “I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”
Trump mentioned two of the men to explain why he believed Biden was wrong.
One of them is former Marine Jorge Avila Torrez, who was convicted of killing a sailor in Virginia and later pleaded guilty to stabbing to death an 8-year-old and a 9-year-old girl years earlier.
The other is Thomas Steven Sanders, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering a 12-year-old girl in Louisiana after shooting her mother.
In the last six months of Trump’s first presidency, he ordered that federal executions resume after a 20-year pause. Thirteen federal prisoners were then executed, the most for one presidency in a century.
The American Civil Liberties Union released a statement after Trump resumed his pledges to restart death penalties saying it was a “chilling” plan.
“He’s already shown us that he will act on these promises,” the ACLU said in reference to Trump’s first presidency.
There are about 2,200 death row prisoners in state prisons, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Tenth Amendment states’ rights mean the president has no authority over their death sentences.
The three federal prisoners whose sentences Biden refused to commute were each convicted of hate crimes and mass murder.
They were Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; Tree of Life Synagogue gunman Robert Bowers, who killed 11 in Pittsburgh; and Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black congregants at Mother Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina.
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