President-elect Donald Trump threatened to notify federal death row inmates during this campaign and rescind the moratorium on executions put in place under the outgoing Biden-Harris administration.
“President-elect Trump has no hesitation in using the death penalty,” said Matt Mangino, a former district attorney in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, and a death penalty expert. “He directed 13 executions in the final year of his first term.''
But the president-elect has also said he wants to expand the death penalty for other crimes, including the execution of child rapists, human traffickers and illegal immigrants who kill Americans or police officers.
That would require support from Congress and the Supreme Court.
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Former President Donald Trump speaks to a crowd at a rally at the Dodge County Airport on Sunday, October 6, 2024, in Juneau, Wisconsin. (Giovany Hernandez/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
Some of those ideas run into hurdles. In 2008, the Supreme Court declared the death penalty for child rapists if the child survives unconstitutional. american bar journal It was reported on Monday.
But with President Trump in the White House, Republicans in the Senate with a majority in the Senate, and conservatives currently holding a 6-3 advantage on the Supreme Court, supporters are hoping for a reversal.
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“The Supreme Court has said the death penalty should only be applied in cases involving the death of the victim, but that could change depending on the current composition of the Supreme Court,” Mangino told FOX News Digital. Ta.
Three of the four justices who dissented from the 2008 Kennedy v. Louisiana decision are still on the court: Justices John Roberts, Justices Clarence Thomas, and Justices Samuel Alito.
Mangino said imposing the death penalty for people convicted of drug and human trafficking would also be a landmark measure.
“The death penalty for drug and human trafficking would be unprecedented in Western countries,” he said.
He noted that former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte sparked an international outcry after he waged a violent war on drugs in the Southeast Asian country.
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U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC, July 1, 2024 (Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images)
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has vowed to fight efforts to expand the death penalty.
In July, the group pointed out that President Trump paid for a full-page ad calling for the execution of the Central Park Five, people convicted of rape and assault in a parkland attack in the 1980s. At the time, New York state had no law allowing the death penalty for rape cases, so it was completely banned in 2004.
More than a decade after their wrongful convictions, all five were exonerated by DNA evidence. One of them, Yousef Salam, is currently a member of the New York City Council.
There are currently 40 federal death row inmates. Death Penalty Information Centerand the list includes surviving Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Dylann Roof, who massacred nine parishioners at a South Carolina church.
According to Justice Department records, the federal government has executed 16 people since 2001, including the death of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, followed eight days later by American drug trafficker Juan Raul Garza. , killed two people and executed the third himself.
A police mugshot of Timothy McVeigh is on display at the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum in Oklahoma City on June 12, 2001, the day after his execution. (Getty Images)
Thirteen of those executions took place during President Trump's first term.
States executed 1,542 death row inmates from 1977 to 2022, according to federal data. Texas led the way with 587 executions, more than the next two states combined: Oklahoma with 119 and Virginia with 113.
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According to the ACLU, 192 death row inmates were exonerated and released over the same period, from 1973 to 2023.
Because each state has its own death penalty system or no death penalty system at all, they will likely be less affected by the Trump administration's policies.
“Trump will have a Republican Senate and probably a Republican House as well,” Mangino said. “He can do a lot on the death penalty, but only the Supreme Court can put the brakes on it. And what are the chances of that happening?”
