
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday promised to “aggressively pursue” the death penalty after President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of most people on federal death row in part to prevent Trump from moving forward with executions.
Trump criticized Biden’s decision on Monday to change the sentences of 37 out of 40 people sentenced to life in prison without parole, saying it was a meaningless decision that insulted the families of their victims. Biden said converting their sentences to life imprisonment is consistent with the moratorium on federal executions in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass killings.
“Joe Biden has just commuted the death sentence of 37 of our country’s worst killers,” he wrote on his social media site. “When you hear everyone’s actions, you won’t believe they did this. It makes no sense. Relatives and friends are being devastated even more. They can’t believe this is happening!”
He watches: Why did Biden commute the sentences of 37 people on federal death row?
Historically, presidents have had no role in dictating or recommending the punishments federal prosecutors seek to impose on defendants in criminal cases, although Trump has long sought more direct control over the Justice Department’s operations. The president-elect wrote that he would direct the department to pursue the death penalty “once inaugurated,” but was vague about what specific actions he might take, saying they would be applied in cases of “rapists, murderers, and violent criminals.” “Monsters.”
He highlighted the cases of two men who were on federal death row for killing a woman and a girl. They confessed to killing more, and Biden commuted their sentences.
Is it a plan in progress or just rhetoric?
During his campaign, Trump frequently called for expanding the federal death penalty — including for those who kill police officers, those convicted of drug smuggling and human trafficking, and immigrants who kill U.S. citizens.
“Trump has been fairly consistent in his desire to say that he believes the death penalty is an important tool and wants to use it,” said Douglas Berman, a sentencing expert at Ohio State University College of Law. “But whether any of that can happen in practice, whether under current law or other laws, is a heavy lift.”
Berman said Trump’s statement at this point appears to be merely a response to Biden’s mitigation.
“I’m inclined to think it’s still at the rhetorical stage. Just, don’t worry. The new sheriff is coming. I like the death penalty,” he said.
Historically, most Americans have supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder, according to decades of annual Gallup polling, but support has declined over the past few decades. About half of Americans supported this in an opinion poll conducted in October, while about 7 in 10 Americans supported the death penalty for murderers in 2007.
Death row inmates are mostly sentenced by states
Before Biden’s commutation, there were 40 federal inmates on death row compared to more than 2,000 on state death row.
“The reality is that all of these crimes are typically handled by the states,” Berman said.
The question now is whether the Trump administration will try to take over some state-level homicide cases, such as those related to drug trafficking or smuggling. He could also try to take cases from countries that have abolished the death penalty.
Can rape now be punishable by death?
Berman said Trump’s statement, along with some recent actions by states, may represent an attempt to get the Supreme Court to reconsider precedent that considers the death penalty a disproportionate punishment for the crime of rape.
“This will literally take decades to unfold. It’s not something that will happen overnight,” Berman said.
Before one of Trump’s rallies on August 20, his prepared remarks released to the media said he would announce that he would seek the death penalty for child rapists and child traffickers. But Trump never toed the line.
What cases did Trump highlight?
One of the men Trump highlighted Tuesday was former Navy SEAL Jorge Avila Torrez, who was sentenced to death for killing a sailor in Virginia and later pleaded guilty to the stabbing deaths of an 8-year-old girl and a 9-year-old girl. In a suburban Chicago park several years ago.
The other man, Thomas Steven Sanders, was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of a 12-year-old girl in Louisiana, days after the girl’s mother was shot at a wildlife park in Arizona. Court records show he admitted to committing both killings.
Some victims’ families expressed anger at Biden’s decision, but the president has faced pressure from advocacy groups urging him to make it more difficult for Trump to increase the use of the death penalty on federal prisoners. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were among the groups that applauded the decision.
Biden left three federal prisoners facing 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 Dzhokar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history.
Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Michelle L. Price and Eric Tucker.