As U.S support for the death penalty reaches new lows, President Donald Trump wants to make capital punishment the norm in the nation’s capital.
“If somebody kills somebody in the capital, Washington, D.C., we’re going to be seeking the death penalty,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House Tuesday, Aug 26.
Contradicting definitive research evidence, Trump wrongly asserted that the threat of capital punishment is “a very strong preventative” to violent crime.
Having recently federalized the Metro D.C. Police to address what he also wrongly called out-of-control crime in the capital, Trump declared prosecutors moving forward will “have no choice” but to seek the death penalty.
According to TIME, the last execution in the District of Columbia took place in 1957. “Most homicides in Washington, D.C. are charged under the local criminal code and tried in D.C. Superior Court, where capital punishment is not authorized. The District’s elected leaders abolished the death penalty in 1981, and residents rejected restoring it in a 1992 referendum by a wide margin.”
However, D.C. “is unique in that the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. prosecutes both local and federal crimes and can, in certain cases, bring federal charges that carry the possibility of death.”
Trump has consistently advocated a “law and order” mantra that appeals to his most conservative base and that critics say is based on racism. Race already is a factor nationwide in use of the death penalty.
The Death Penalty Research Center cites studies showing Black defendants are more likely to be condemned for crimes than white defendants in similar cases, and that conviction rates for Black defendants are higher when victims were white and lower for white defendants whose victims were Black.
Washington, D.C., is a majority Black city.
On Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, Trump signed an executive order on “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety” that called for a return to federal executions.
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.
Trump’s executive order, like his comments on D.C., 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.”
Source: Death Penalty Information Center
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.”
Ayanna Pressley
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., is a longtime opponent of the death penalty, and she jumped on Trump’s comments promptly. She has led efforts in Congress to abolish the federal death penalty and successfully urged President Joe Biden to commute the sentences of most people on Death Row last year.
“In 1989, Donald Trump paid for multiple ads calling for the execution of five innocent teenagers of color who were coerced and beaten to confess to a murder they did not commit. To this day, he has yet to change his views or apologize to these men — who have since been exonerated — and is now seeking to expand capital punishment in Washington, D.C., and across the country,” Pressley said.
“Like Donald Trump himself, the death penalty is flawed and deeply racist. It is a fundamentally unjust punishment that has no place in any society. It has been disproportionately weaponized against Black and brown communities and failed to make America any safer — which is why we’ve worked persistently to abolish it and successfully partnered with President Biden to re-sentence most of federal Death Row.
“Rather than militarize our cities, weaponize the federal government to terrorize communities, and continue distracting from his many broken promises, Donald Trump should instead prioritize what actually keeps people safe: community-based, trauma-informed solutions like affordable housing, mental health care and gun violence prevention programs — the same initiatives he has attacked and defunded since taking office. That’s how we break cycles of violence and build safe, healthy and thriving communities.”
Meanwhile, support for the death penalty nationwide continues to drop. Gallup reported last year finding the lowest levels of death penalty support measured since 1972. Support for the death penalty was measured at 66% in 2006, 61% in 2016 and 54% in 2024.
Opponents of capital punishment — including many evangelicals and Catholics — argue the practice is archaic, does not deter crime, re-harms victims’ families, is cruel punishment and is racially flawed. They also point to the large number of Death Row exonerations that have happened nationwide due to prosecutorial misconduct and the use of newer forensic technologies.
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