“If somebody kills somebody in the capital, Washington, D.C., we’re going to be seeking the death penalty,” President Donald Trump announced Tuesday during a cabinet meeting. “And that’s a very strong preventative, and everybody that’s heard it agrees with it. And, I don’t know if we’re ready for it in this country, but we have… we have no choice.”
This announcement comes after the federal takeover of law enforcement in Washington D.C., a move Trump has said was made to counter rampant crime in the city. It also falls in line with the sentiment of an executive order he issued on his first day in office titled “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety” that criticized the approach his predecessors – former President Barack Obama and former President Joe Biden – had towards capital punishment.
“For too long, politicians and judges who oppose capital punishment have defied and subverted the laws of our country,” reads the order, which calls for capital punishment laws to be implemented. “At every turn, they seek to thwart the execution of lawfully imposed capital sentences and choose to enforce their personal beliefs rather than the law.”
USA Today noted that Trump made restoring the death penalty a major campaign issue last year. Gallup polling conducted last fall found that public support for capital punishment had hit a record low, but was still over 50%.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), there has not been an execution in D.C. since Robert Carter died in 1957. He was convicted of fatally shooting an off-duty police officer who pursued him after a robbery. Although the jury recommended mercy, the law at the time mandated the death penalty.
A Supreme Court decision nullified the D.C. death penalty in 1972 and it was repealed in 1981 by the D.C. council. Then, district residents voted two to one against the death penalty in a 1992 referendum ordered by Congress.
“In 1997, the D.C. Council’s Judiciary Committee rejected a bill to permit capital punishment for the murder of public safety employees,” said the DPIC. “The bill was proposed by then-Mayor Marion Barry.”
Trump acknowledged during the cabinet meeting that individual states are able to decide whether to allow the death penalty in their jurisdictions. Currently, 27 states in the U.S. have the death penalty, 23 do not have it and four have a gubernatorial hold on, per the DPIC. States surrounding D.C. – Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia – are some of the 23 without the death penalty. Earlier this year, Audacy reported that new Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman said capital punishment could soon be back on the table in California, another state that does not currently have the death penalty.
While Trump’s executive order called capital punishment “an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens,” others have criticized the practice. For example, the human rights organization Amnesty International calls the death penalty: “the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.”
Some who advocate against the death penalty point to people who have served time on death row and were ultimately exonerated. DPIC data shows that 200 death row prisoners have been exonerated from 1972 to 2024, including three last year. USA Today said Trump’s announcement regarding D.C. was met with mixed reactions and that his own supporters have rallied around it.
More than 1,600 people in the U.S. have been executed since the 1970s, but actual executions in the U.S. have declined over the past two decades. Last year marked the third year in a row when under 25 executions were performed in the country.
That threshold has nearly been met this year already, with 29 executions in 10 states. Florida, led by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, conducted more than a third of those executions.
“This year’s increase in executions reflects the decisions of elected officials in a few states, not a change in public support, while the number of new death sentences remains low,” said the DPIC in a report published Wednesday.