FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday vowed to “vigorously” pursue the death penalty after President Joe. Biden changed the sentences Most of the people on federal death row, in part, to prevent Trump from going ahead with their executions.
Trump criticized Biden’s decision on Monday to commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 people to life in prison without parole, arguing that it was unreasonable and insulted to the families of their victims. Biden said commuting their sentences to life in prison was consistent with a moratorium on federal executions in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.
“Joe Biden has just commuted the Death Penalty against 37 of our Country’s worst murderers,” he wrote on his social network. “When you hear the actions of each one, you will not believe that he did that. It doesn’t make sense. Family and friends are even more devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!”
Historically, presidents have not been involved in ordering or recommending sentences that federal prosecutors seek for defendants in criminal cases, although Trump has long sought more direct control over Justice Department operations. The president wrote that he would direct the department to pursue the death penalty “as soon as it is inaugurated,” but was vague about what specific actions it might take and said it would be in cases of “rapists, murderers, and violent rapists.” monsters”.
He highlighted the cases of two men on federal death row for killing a woman and a girl, who admitted to killing more and had their sentences commuted by Biden.
On the campaign trail, Trump frequently called for expanding the federal death penalty, including for those who kill police officers, those convicted of drug and human trafficking, and migrants who kill US citizens.
“Trump has been pretty consistent in saying that he thinks the death penalty is an important tool and that he wants to use it,” said Douglas Berman, a sentencing expert at Ohio State University School of Law. “But whether or not that can actually happen, under existing law or under other laws, is a moot point.”
Berman said Trump’s statement appears to be merely a response to Biden’s conundrum at this point.
“I think it’s still in the rhetoric phase. Simply ‘don’t worry. A new sheriff is coming. I like the death penalty,’” he said.
A majority of Americans have historically supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder, according to annual Gallup polls for decades, but support has declined in recent decades. Half of Americans supported the death penalty in an October poll, and 7 in 10 Americans supported the death penalty for murderers in 2007.
Before Biden’s inauguration, there were 40 federal inmates on death row compared to more than 2,000 state inmates.
“The reality is that all of these crimes are usually handled by the states,” Berman said.
One question is whether the Trump administration will try to take on some state murder cases, such as those related to drug trafficking or smuggling. One can also try to include cases from states that have abolished the death penalty.
Berman said Trump’s statement, along with recent actions by states, could be an effort by the Supreme Court to reconsider a precedent that considers the death penalty for rape an disproportionate punishment.
“It would literally take decades to expand. It’s not something that will happen overnight”, said Berman.
Before one of Trump’s rallies on August 20, a prepared statement released to the media said he would announce that he would seek the death penalty for child rapists and child traffickers. But Trump never delivered the line.
One of the men Trump singled out on Tuesday was former Marine Jorge Avila Torrez, who was sentenced to death in Virginia for killing a sailor and later pleaded guilty to stabbing an 8-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl. In a suburban Chicago park a few years earlier.
The other man, Thomas Steven Sanders, was sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing a 12-year-old Louisiana girl days after shooting the girl’s mother at an Arizona wildlife park. Court records show he admitted to both murders.
Some of the victims’ families expressed anger at Biden’s decision, but the president came under pressure from advocacy groups to make it harder for Trump to increase the death penalty for federal prisoners. The ACLU and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops were among the groups that applauded the decision.
Biden left three federal prisoners to face execution. They are Dylann Roof, who did it The 2015 racist murders of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who shot 11 congregants in Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018The deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history. _______
Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Michelle L. Price and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
