FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he will “vigorously pursue” the death penalty to prevent Trump from pursuing executions after President Joe Biden partially commuted the sentences of most inmates on federal death row. I promised.
President Trump criticized candidate Biden’s decision to sentence 37 of the 40 people sentenced to death to life in prison without parole, calling it “reckless and insulting to the victims’ families.” Biden said converting their sentences to life in prison is consistent with a federal moratorium on executions except for mass murders motivated by terrorism and hate.
“Joe Biden just commuted the sentences of 37 of our country’s worst murderers,” he wrote on his social media site. “If you listen to what each person has done, you will not believe that he did this. It doesn’t make sense. Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!”
Historically, presidents have not been involved in directing or recommending the punishments federal prosecutors seek for defendants in criminal cases, but Trump has long sought more direct control over the Justice Department’s operations. The president-elect wrote that “as soon as I take office,” he would direct the department to seek the death penalty, but was vague about what specific steps he would take, “violent rapists, murderers and monsters.”
He highlighted the case of two men on federal death row for killing women and girls who admitted to killing more people and had their sentences commuted by Biden.
Is this a plan in action or is it more rhetorical?
On the campaign trail, Trump frequently called for expanding the federal death penalty to include people who kill police officers, people convicted of drug and human trafficking, and immigrants who kill U.S. 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 Law School. “But whether that can actually happen under existing or other laws is a huge burden.”
Berman said that at this point, Trump’s comments appear to be merely a response to Biden’s commutation.
“I think it’s still close to the investigative stage. Just say, ‘Don’t worry. There’s a new sheriff on the way. “I like the death penalty,” he said.
Most Americans have historically supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder, but support has declined over the past few decades, according to annual polls conducted by Gallup for decades. An October poll found that about half of Americans supported the death penalty for murderers, and in 2007, about 7 in 10 Americans supported the death penalty for murderers.
Death row inmates are sentenced in most countries.
Before Biden’s commutations, there were 40 people on federal death row and more than 2,000 people on state death row.
“The reality is that all of these crimes are typically handled by the state,” Berman said.
The question is whether the Trump administration will try to take over some of the state’s murder cases related to drug trafficking or smuggling. He may also try to take on cases from states that have abolished the death penalty.
Is rape now punishable by death?
Berman said Trump’s comments and recent state actions could signal an effort to get the Supreme Court to reconsider its precedent that it considers the death penalty a disproportionate punishment for rape.
“It will literally take decades for it to unfold. It’s not going to happen overnight,” Berman said.
President Trump’s prepared remarks released to the media ahead of his rally on August 20 stated that he would call for the death penalty for child rapists and child traffickers. But Trump never delivered on that line.
What examples did Trump highlight?
One of the men Trump highlighted on Tuesday was Jorge Avila Torrez, a former Marine who was sentenced to death for killing a sailor in Virginia and later pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing an 8- and 9-year-old girl. A few years ago in a park outside Chicago.
Another man, Thomas Stephen Sanders, was sentenced to death in Louisiana for kidnapping and killing a 12-year-old girl. It came days after the girl’s mother was shot at a wildlife park in Arizona. He admitted to both murders, according to court records.
The countdown to Trump has begun
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Some victims’ families have expressed outrage over Biden’s decision, but the president has faced pressure from advocacy groups calling on him to make it more difficult for Trump to increase executions of federal prisoners. The ACLU and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were among the groups that applauded the decision.
Biden allowed three federal prisoners to be executed. They are Dylann Roof, the racist murderer of nine black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015; 2013 Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who in 2018 shot 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, carrying out the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. ________
Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Michelle L. Price and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
