WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th May, 2021) If US president Joe Biden seeks to put an end to capital punishment in the country, he must try to build a bipartisan consensus to back the law abolishing it � and if such a move is obstructed by the Republicans, he can commute the death sentences of everyone on Federal death row, Robert Dunham, Executive Director from the Death Penalty Information Center, which focuses on disseminating reports related to the death penalty, told Sputnik.
According to recently released documents of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the Biden administration is now reviewing Donald Trump's move to bring back federal execution after a 17-year hiatus, Although Biden has publicly opposed the death penalty, he has not taken any action toward abolishing it forever, which would preclude future American presidents from resuming the practice.
"If the Biden administration wants to end the death penalty, it can work to try to build a bipartisan consensus in support of legislation to abolish the federal death penalty, and if the Republicans in Congress obstruct those efforts, he can commute the death sentences of everyone currently on federal death row," Dunham said.
He added that Biden could also direct the Justice Department not to pursue the death penalty in future cases and to drop capital punishment in cases in which it was approved by Trump.
"The Biden administration has already changed the federal government policy on the death penalty by not continuing the prior administration's execution spree," he stated, recalling that the new authorities also asked a federal court to return a prisoners' appeal of the Trump-era ruling which limited Arizona death-row prisoners access to federal judicial review of their capital appeals, so the Justice Department can do more factfinding.
Dunham admitted that even "doing nothing" is already a major change from the high rate of executions carried out during the Trump administration, "which had no parallel in either the 20th or 21st centuries."
"However, that would simply create the same situation we saw in the last administration, in which a future administration that had little regard for the law would have the opportunity to carry out large numbers of executions," he said.
After the Trump administration resumed federal executions in July 2020, 13 death row sentences were implemented. The 13th inmate was executed in January this year, roughly two weeks before Trump's presidential term expired.
Increased discussions of the death penalty comes after the US Supreme Court agreed to review a lower court's decision to toss out the death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of two brothers convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
Reacting to the measure, the White House said that Joe Biden has strong concerns whether the death penalty as currently practiced fits with American values. However, during his election campaign, Biden promised to try to abolish all federal death sentences.
