Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
President Trump’s Day-One Executive Order Directed the Department to Prioritize Seeking and Implementing Death Sentences to Protect Public Safety
Today, the Department of Justice acted to restore its solemn duty to seek, obtain, and implement lawful capital sentences—clearing the way for the Department to carry out executions once death-sentenced inmates have exhausted their appeals. Among the actions taken are readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump Administration, expanding the protocol to include additional manners of execution such as the firing squad, and streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases. These steps are critical to deterring the most barbaric crimes, delivering justice for victims, and providing long-overdue closure to surviving loved ones.
“The prior administration failed in its duty to protect the American people by refusing to pursue and carry out the ultimate punishment against the most dangerous criminals, including terrorists, child murderers, and cop killers,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing with victims.”
On his first day in office, President Trump directed the Department of Justice to prioritize seeking death sentences in appropriate cases, promptly carrying out those sentences, and strengthening the death penalty. Since then, the Department has taken sustained action to implement that directive and reverse the Biden Justice Department’s efforts to erode the death penalty.
The Biden Justice Department, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, broke sharply from its longstanding approach to capital crimes and took extraordinary steps to weaken, delay, and dismantle the death penalty. In doing so, it caused untold harm to the public. Specifically, the Biden Justice Department:
- Imposed an indefinite moratorium on executions based on a deeply flawed analysis asserting that the existing federal practice of execution by lethal injection with pentobarbital could not be carried out without risking “unnecessary pain and suffering.”
- Declined to seek the death penalty in many horrific cases, even where career prosecutors and Biden’s own U.S. Attorneys recommended it, including cases involving child rapists and murderers; racially motivated mass shooters; and gangsters and drug dealers who murdered law enforcement officers, government witnesses, and informants.
- Abandoned capital prosecutions that prior Attorneys General had lawfully authorized and that federal prosecutors were actively litigating—against the wishes of victims’ families and career prosecutors.
- Urged President Biden to effectively empty federal death row by commuting the death sentences of 37 of 40 death-row inmates based on Attorney General Garland’s personal opposition to the death penalty without consulting all the victims’ families.
Under the leadership of President Trump and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Justice Department is committed to correcting these failures and restoring the lawful administration of the death penalty. The Department has rescinded the Biden-Garland moratorium on federal executions and has authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants. Acting Attorney General Blanche has already authorized seeking death sentences against nine of these defendants, including three MS-13 members, two of whom are illegal aliens, accused of murdering a federal witness.
Today, the Justice Department took the following steps to better achieve public safety and deliver justice to victims of the very worst crimes:
- Released the Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty Report, which examines the actions of the Biden-Garland Justice Department and, after a thorough analysis, finds that the use of pentobarbital to carry out death sentences is consistent with the Eighth Amendment.
- Directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to reinstate the execution protocol adopted during the first Trump Administration, which relies on pentobarbital as the lethal agent.
- Directed BOP to expand the execution protocol to include additional manners of execution such as the firing squad.
- Directed BOP to examine relocating or expanding federal death row or constructing an additional execution facility to permit additional manners of execution.
- Directed the Office of Legislative Affairs to finalize and deliver a comprehensive legislative proposal to Congress that will improve public safety and better achieve justice for victims.
In the coming weeks, the Department plans to take the following additional steps:
- Consider a rule that will empower states to streamline federal habeas review of capital cases. If adopted, the rule will reduce by years the period between conviction and execution in state capital cases.
- Publish a proposed rule prohibiting capital inmates from submitting clemency petitions, and the Office of the Pardon Attorney from considering such petitions, until court decisions in the inmate’s direct appeal and first collateral attack are final.
- Revise the Justice Manual to return the Department to its historic approach to capital crimes, streamline the process for seeking death sentences, and ensure appropriate consultation with victims’ families.
Read the report here.