As part of his crackdown on crime in the nation’s capital, US President Donald Trump has made it known that his administration will seek the death penalty for each murder case that arises in Washington, DC.
Trump announced the announcement while his cabinet was having a Labor Day-themed meeting on Tuesday, where he discussed a range of issues, including gun sales and the rising cost of living.
“There is the death penalty when someone murders something in the capital.” Trump seemed to enjoy the wordplay, calling it capital punishment.
We will seek the death penalty if someone murders someone in Washington, DC, the capital. And everyone who has heard it agrees with it because it’s a very strong preventative.
Trump then acknowledged that the policy would likely be contentious, despite his pledge to continue.
Trump said, “We have no choice, but I don’t know if we’re ready for it in this country.” “States will have to make their own decision,” he said.
DC federal prosecution
In the US, Washington, DC, is unique. Instead of a state or city within a state, the constitution of the nation designated the capital as a federal district.
Except where they fall under the purview of a federal crime, the majority of murder cases are prosecuted by state or local authorities elsewhere in the nation.
The US Attorney’s Office, a federal prosecutor’s office under the Department of Justice, prosecutes almost all violent crimes in Washington, DC, though.
Prior to the release of the death penalty, former president Joe Biden’s administration had previously backed away from it. Under the Democrat’s leadership, the Justice Department imposed a moratorium on ending execution as it reviewed its policies.
Biden himself supported the promise to “eliminate the death penalty,” claiming that more than 160 of those who were executed between 1973 and 2020 were later found innocent.
Biden’s campaign team wrote on his 2020 campaign website that “we cannot ensure we get death penalty cases right every time.” “We will work to pass legislation to end the death penalty at the federal level and encourage states to follow the federal government’s example,” Biden said.
In one of his final as president, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people who were on federal death row. He also did not ultimately abolish the federal death penalty.
He predicted that a second Trump administration would actively pursue the death penalty in federal cases in a statement released last December.
According to Biden, “I can’t stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
A policy change
However, one of Trump’s first executive orders was to “restore” the death penalty when he took office for a second term on January 20.
According to Trump, “Capital punishment is a crucial tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens.”
Our Founders were well aware that only the death penalty could bring justice and restore order in such a wicked world.
The Republican leader had run for re-election on a platform that had suggested a crackdown on immigration and crime, but he occasionally concocted the two despite evidence that undocumented people committed less crimes than US-born citizens.
Trump rebuffed Biden’s claim to commute the majority of those on federal death row in the days leading up to his inauguration by saying otherwise.
On his platform Truth Social, Trump stated, “I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters.” “We will once again be a Nation of Law and Order”!
Trump has repeatedly pushed for the death penalty to be used more frequently in the past seven months, including in a March speech to a joint congressional session.
In that speech, he demanded that the US Congress pass a law making the death penalty a mandatory sentence for the murder of a law enforcement official.
Trump gained a reputation for accelerating the use of the death penalty on the federal level during his first term, which ran from 2017 to 2021.
Although federal executions are uncommon, the first Trump administration carried out 13 of the 16 total executions since 1976, the Supreme Court’s reinstatement date.
George W. Bush, a fellow Republican, was the only president to carry out the death penalty at the time, while his administration oversaw three federal executions.
During Trump’s second term, critics anticipate a similar rise in death penalty cases.
Over the past ten years, the public has been supporting the death penalty steadily, according to surveys. A small majority of Americans in favor of the death penalty, according to Gallup research, compared to 63 percent a decade earlier, in 2024.
A DC crime epidemic?
Trump’s controversial proposal to reduce crime in Washington, DC coincides with his controversial proposal to do so.
That is in contrast to data from the Metropolitan Police Department, which the Justice Department shared in a statement in January and which shows violent crime in the capital hit a 30-year low in 2024.
According to the report, murders decreased by 32 percent from the previous year.
Trump has maintained that crime only decreased after earlier this month, he patrolled the city with more than 2, 000 armed National Guard personnel.
The worst crime ever to occur in Washington. And yet, despite working so hard and taking so many people away, we have taken so many criminals over the past 13 days. At the cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump said, “Over a thousand”.
He added that Washington, DC’s local government provided “false numbers” in its crime reporting, despite lacking any supporting evidence.
They issued the statement “It’s the best in 30 years.” Not the best. The worst scenario exists. Trump called it the worst. They also provided false information.
Trump signed an executive order to create a new division of the National Guard “to ensure public safety and order in the Nation’s capital” just a day prior.
However, except in cases of disasters or significant public emergencies, the federal government is generally prohibited from using military forces for domestic law enforcement under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
Although local leaders have refuted Trump’s claim that Washington, DC, has a national emergency,
He defended his strong-arm approach to law enforcement at times during the cabinet meeting, even when it comes to drawing criticism for his “dictatorship.”
Source: Aljazeera
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