Biden running out of time to fulfill 2020 campaign pledge to abolish death penalty

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President Biden is running out of time to fulfill his 2020 presidential campaign promise to abolish the death penalty, leaving a gap for his opposition to capitalize on the difficulty.

During Biden’s 2020 campaign, he vowed to finish the federal death penalty and, after taking workplace three years in the past, his incoming administration thought-about a number of doable choices to accomplish that.

However, none got here to fruition, and there are about eight months till the November election.

While Biden has but to act on capital punishment, former President Trump has taken the difficulty on the campaign path with him, vowing to lengthen the penalty to drug sellers.

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Joe Biden speaking with reporters

President Biden is running out of time to fulfill his 2020 presidential campaign promise to abolish the federal death penalty. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In January 2021, Biden initially thought-about an govt order, folks acquainted with the matter advised The Associated Press, however the White House didn’t subject one.

It additionally didn’t push Congress for laws barring it.

Six months into the administration, Attorney General Merrick Garland introduced a moratorium on federal capital punishment to research it additional. The slim motion has meant there have been no federal executions underneath Biden, but it surely merely put the death penalty on a brief maintain.

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A White House spokesperson advised Fox News Digital that Biden stays involved about how federal executions are utilized.

“The President has long talked about his concerns about how the death penalty is applied and whether it is consistent with the values fundamental to our sense of justice and fairness,” stated White House assistant press secretary Robyn Patterson. “He supports the attorney general’s decision to issue a moratorium on federal executions while the Department of Justice conducts a comprehensive review of the practice.”

Donald Trump, Tim Scott

Former President Trump has constantly vowed in campaign speeches throughout the nation to implement capital punishment towards sure drug sellers. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The maintain has been apparently lifted because the Justice Department has pushed for the death penalty towards the suspects charged within the Pittsburgh and Buffalo, New York, mass shootings — Payton Gendron, who killed 10 Black folks at a Buffalo’s Tops grocery store in 2022, and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018.

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Biden is the primary president to overtly oppose capital punishment, and his 2020 campaign web site declared that he would “work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example.”

Similar language doesn’t seem on his web site this yr.

Biden with his hands up

President Biden is the primary president to overtly oppose capital punishment. (Leigh Vogel/Bloomberg by way of Getty Images)

Whether Biden intends to act on the death penalty earlier than November just isn’t instantly clear, though such motion just isn’t often pursued in an election yr. Additionally, Biden doesn’t talk about the death penalty a lot at present.

Some Biden supporters have been left annoyed because the president has been empty-handed on executions.

Conversely, Trump has constantly vowed in campaign speeches throughout the nation to implement capital punishment towards those that promote or transport lethal fentanyl as half of his nationwide crackdown on crime.

“It’s always been used as a political talking point. It has for centuries, and it probably always will be,” stated Robin Maher, govt director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. “But I think the American public is seeing through that now and is really looking for more serious answers to these very serious problems in our communities.”

According to Gallup, assist for the death penalty has continued to fall over the past 30 years.

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In 1994, 80% supported executions for convicted killers. This assist has fallen to 53% final yr. In November, Gallup present in a separate ballot {that a} majority of Americans imagine the death penalty is unfairly utilized, 50% to 47%.

In addition to the federal authorities, 21 states enable the death penalty.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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