Even though public support for the death penalty is waning, President Donald Trump wasted no time after his Jan. 20 inauguration bolstering federal support for executions and making sure states have access to the deadly medications needed to carry out their own executions.
An executive order on “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety” begins with the contested claim that “capital punishment is an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens.”
Opponents of the death penalty — including some evangelical Christians and Catholics and many family members of victims — point to data showing capital punishment actually is not a deterrent to crime.
“We know the death penalty does not deter crime, that it is racially discriminatory, expensive and done in a tortuous manner,” Sam Heath of Equal Justice USA said in a 2022 webinar.
According to Stephen Reeves, executive director of Fellowship Southwest, “Despite numerous studies, there is no conclusive evidence that the death penalty deters crime. States with the death penalty do not have lower crime or murder rates than those that do, and states have not shown an increase in crime or murder following the abolition of capital punishment. Internationally, murder rates have declined following abolition.”
Putting prisoners to death also is a stated objective of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint for the new Trump administration.
Yet Trump and his evangelical supporters love the death penalty. And putting prisoners to death also is a stated objective of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint for the new Trump administration.
After 17 years without a federal execution, Trump ordered 13 executions in the final six months of his first term; 2020 marked the first time in history with more federal executions than all state executions combined.
In his executive order, Trump appeals to early American history to make a case for capital punishment: “Before, during and after the founding of the United States, our cities, states and country have continuously relied upon capital punishment as the ultimate deterrent and only proper punishment for the vilest crimes. Our Founders knew well that only capital punishment can bring justice and restore order in response to such evil. For this and other reasons, capital punishment continues to enjoy broad popular support.”
Except it doesn’t enjoy broad popular support. Gallup reports American support for the death penalty continues to decline and currently sits at a 50-year low of 53%.
Trump accused “politicians and judges who oppose capital punishment” of subverting the law by working against executions. “At every turn, they seek to thwart the execution of lawfully imposed capital sentences and choose to enforce their personal beliefs rather than the law.”
The executive order laments that when President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he issued a moratorium on federal executions. And then on Dec. 23, 2024, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 remaining federal Death Row inmates to life in prison.
“He commuted their sentences even though the laws of our nation have always protected victims by applying capital punishment to barbaric acts like theirs,” Trump’s order states. “Judges who oppose capital punishment have likewise disregarded the law by falsely claiming that capital punishment is unconstitutional, even though the Constitution explicitly acknowledges the legality of capital punishment.”
He adds: “The government’s most solemn responsibility is to protect its citizens from abhorrent acts, and my administration will not tolerate efforts to stymie and eviscerate the laws that authorize capital punishment against those who commit horrible acts of violence against American citizens.”
Not only does the order demand federal executions, it singles out seeking the death penalty automatically when a law enforcement officer is murdered or when “an alien illegally present in this country” commits a murder.
Trump signed this order within a few hours of granting full and unconditional pardons to January 6 rioters.
Trump signed this order within a few hours of granting full and unconditional pardons to January 6 rioters, including those who killed or caused the later deaths of U.S. Capitol police officers.
As for the 37 inmates whose sentences were commuted to life without parole by Biden, Trump instructs the attorney general to “evaluate the places of imprisonment and conditions of confinement for each … (and) take all lawful and appropriate action to ensure that these offenders are imprisoned in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose. The attorney general shall further evaluate whether these offenders can be charged with State capital crimes and shall recommend appropriate action to state and local authorities.”
And just in case any death penalty state has trouble acquiring execution drugs — which has been a problem in the past — “the attorney general shall take all necessary and lawful action to ensure that each state that allows capital punishment has a sufficient supply of drugs needed to carry out lethal injection.”
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