President-elect Donald Trump said this Tuesday that he will order the Department of Justice (DOJ) to “vigorously” pursue the death penalty in cases of violent crimes, a day after President Joe Biden commuted the sentence of almost all prisoners sentenced by the federal government to capital punishment.
The Republican warned that as soon as he reaches the White House he will order his prosecutors to seek the maximum penalty “to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers and monsters,” according to what he said in a message on his Truth Social account.
The promise comes a day after Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people sentenced to capital punishment at the federal level, leaving out only three prisoners on death row: one of those responsible for the marathon attack Boston and two for racist murders in places of worship.
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The Democrat defended his order by saying that the United States “must end the use of the death penalty at the federal level, except in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murders.”
When he began his term in January 2021, the Biden Administration imposed a moratorium on federal executions, and its actions today will prevent the Trump Administration from “confirming execution sentences that would not be issued under current policy and practice.” .
Trump will not be able to reverse the commutations granted by Biden, which only left standing the capital sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the perpetrators of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three people and injured more than 260, among of which 17 suffered serious amputations.
The US president also did not commute the death sentences of Robert Bowers, convicted of the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania); and Dylann Roof, convicted of the shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
With information from EFE
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