After Biden’s pardon, Trump promised to give death penalty to ‘rapists, murderers’. death penalty news
During his first term in office, Trump oversaw a series of federal executions unparalleled in modern history.
United States President-elect Donald Trump has promised to increase the use of the death penalty during his second term, saying he will take action against “rapists, murderers and monsters”.
Trump’s announcement on Tuesday came after outgoing President Joe Biden used his presidential pardon powers to commute the sentences of almost all federal inmates on death row to life without parole.
“As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Department of Justice to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters,” Trump said in a social media post. “We will be a nation of law and order again!”
During his first term in office, Trump resumed federal executions, overseeing the executions of 13 people after a nearly 20-year pause. This figure was higher than any president in modern history.
While people in the US continue to support the death penalty for crimes like murder, that support is at its lowest point in decades, falling from 80 percent in 1994 to 53 percent in 2024, according to Gallup polling. Over the same period, opposition has increased from 16 percent to 43 percent.
Supporters of the death penalty say that the death penalty can give a sense of isolation to family members of victims of violent crimes and act as a deterrent against crime, although studies have found little evidence for this.
“The pain and trauma we have endured over the last 7 years is indescribable,” Heather Turner, whose mother was killed during a 2017 bank robbery in Conway, South Carolina, said in a social media post criticizing Biden’s decision. Said.
Opponents say innocent people are wrongfully executed before they can be exonerated, the process of executing someone is long and expensive and the death penalty is disproportionately carried out against people of color.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump emphasized nativist attacks on immigrants, portrayed them as dangerous criminals and said he would seek the death penalty for undocumented immigrants who commit crimes such as murder and rape against American citizens. Will demand punishment.
Immigrants commit violent crimes at lower rates than the US-born, and immigrant rights groups see dark undertones in Trump’s fixation on violent acts committed by immigrants.
Three federal inmates on death row whose sentences Biden chose not to commute were all found guilty of hate crimes.
They are Dylann Roof, who murdered nine black congregants of Mother Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina in 2015; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who carried out the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history when he gunned down 17 congregants at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, killing 11 people.
