Implications to the Death Penalty arising from Donald Trump’s presidency
Introduction
This blog post navigates the implications of the Trump administration on the death penalty. By taking into account the the president’s first term, campaign arguments for the 2024 election and current attitudes surrounding the death penalty, a disturbing pattern emerges of mounting rates of capital punishment. Through the analysis of such factors, it can be suggested that the future of the death penalty under President Trump is likely to become more violent, a potential significant hinderance to the extensive efforts made by abolitionist movements.
Donald Trump’s First Term
The overwhelming support for capital punishment by the republican president can be traced back to his commentary on the Central Park Five. On May 1 1989, Trump called on the return of execution for murder in a full-page advertisement which was published in all four of New York City’s prominent newspapers. Trump stated that he wanted “criminals of every age to be afraid”. Shockingly, in 2019, the president said he would not apologise for his harsh commentary about the group, as reported by the New York Times. This comes despite the teenagers being innocent of the crimes alleged against them and the immense institutional racism they faced throughout their case. Such an example, in my view, clearly demonstrates the extremity of the presidents views on execution, something that has definitely manifested in his actions while in office.
According to The Guardian, during Trump’s first term from 2017-2021, “more people incarcerated in the federal system were put to death than under the previous ten presidents combined”. In fact, he became the president with the highest executions since the 1940’s, further illustrating the indifference of the administration.
Capital Punishment and Trump’s Presidential Campaign
Advocates for those awaiting execution, communicated by The Guardian, feared that Donald Trump’s second term would be “worse than his first”, which saw 13 federal executions. It can be suggested that even through his campaign alone, these fears were very much justified.
Though contested by the President, much of his decisions have manifested from “Project 2025”, “a right-wing blueprint written by his allies”, as labelled by The Guardian. This called for the government to do “everything possible to obtain finality” for the forty people on federal death row. Additionally, it also stated for the president to expand capital punishment to “non-homicide crimes to push the US Supreme court to overrule precedent limiting death sentences to murders”.
These same comments were alluded to by the president during his campaign run. He was noted to have said that “We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts”, as according to him, “it’s the only way”. Such comments directly relate to the latter statement in Project 2025. Most shockingly, the rolling stone reported that the President had been sharing to confidants, ideas of bringing back firing squads, hangings and “possibly even the guillotine”, if he returned to the White House. This alarming comment encapsulates an almost malicious intent to dramatise executions , especially in likening those incarcerated and on death row to forms of entertainment.
Current State of Capital Punishment
On the President’s first day, he signed executive order 14164 which “restored the death penalty”, a reference to Biden commuting the sentences of all but three inmates of federal death row, and to the death penalty states that had been inactive in the last couple of years. The fact that this was a decision made in the first 100 days, a benchmark used to measure a new presidents early success, set an uneasy precedent. One that is articulated well by Sister Helen Prejean, an anti-death penalty advocate, who stated, “its in the air, its in the national rhetoric sent down from Trump- you use violence and cruelty to solve social problems”. Not only has this been seen in the attitudes towards the death penalty, but in other areas of law enforcement, particularly related to immigration and “ICE”. There has been a staggering increase in brutality against citizens conducted by the Trump Administration. This not only has vast social implications with communities turned into “conflict zones’, as labelled by The Guardian, but also economic impact as the ICE operation put a “huge dent” into Minneapolis’ economy (Frey).
What is the Future of the Death Penalty?
In following this shift towards brutality, it is possible that the future of the death penalty in the United States could turn for the worse. As hinted at during the presidential campaign, non-fatal offences concerning drugs could see capital punishment, as an extreme reaction to curb the “war on drugs”. The fact that the conservative majority U.S Supreme Court has frequently sided with the trump administration, particularly on issues of executive authority, further proliferates feelings of uncertainty and fear. Despite the potential of a lack of legal challenge to these changes, it was reported by Gallup, who takes the views of the American public on the death penalty since 1937, that 52% of people supported the death penalty, a fifty year low. Hence, there’s an air of comfort in knowing that despite arguments made by the administration in increasing capital punishment, the public have become more aware of abolition, a somewhat positive glimmer in a very uncertain future.
Written by Alisha Riaz
