President Trump’s death penalty order mandates supplying states with lethal injections

President Trump signed an executive order resuming federal executions, which were on hold after a 2021 moratorium by former Attorney General Merrick Garland.

He instructed the Attorney General to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use” and declared that ensuring the implementation of capital punishment laws will be a US policy.

Photo: Emiliano Bar / Unsplash

The executive order said the Attorney General should pursue Federal jurisdiction and seek the death penalty “regardless of other factors” in any crime involving the killing of a law enforcement official or those committed by “illegal aliens.”

Photo: Nick Fewings / Unsplash

He also requested the Attorney General to “encourage State attorneys general and district attorneys to bring State capital charges” for those cases and any other with legal merit.

To preserve capital punishment, President Trump also instructed the Attorney General to ensure that any state with death penalty laws has a sufficient supply of lethal injections.

The order came just a few days after former President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 federal death row inmates. Leaving only those three with terrorism and mass shooting charges.

Still, Biden’s commutations are limited to the Federal death row. According to CNN, there are over 2,000 people on state death row outside federal reach.

President Trump, who reacted angrily to Biden’s commutations, is now ensuring that states have enough supplies to carry out the execution of their death row inmates.

Mr. Trump has been an open supporter of capital punishment since his first administration and throughout his 2024 campaign as a part of his tough-on-crime stance.

During his first Presidency, he made broad use of the law. He carried out a record number of federal executions, which had stopped in the early 2000s.

According to the BBC, during his last year in office in his first term, President Trump executed 13 people, the most significant number in over a century. Five of those executions happened during the presidential transition.

Now, he has also asked the Attorney General to seek the overruling of Supreme Court precedents that “limit the authority of State and Federal governments to impose capital punishment.”

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