How Biden Could End the Death Penalty

Guards walk down the hallway at San Quentin State Prison in California [AP/Ben Margot]

Last week, the Trump administration executed Brandon Bernard and Alfred Bourgeois. Bernard’s case attracted widespread attention on social media, with many people calling for Trump to commute his sentence, while Bourgeois — whose case appeared less sympathetic — was executed without fanfare.

As the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the country, President Trump quietly restarted federal executions for the first time in 17 years in July, and has overseen the executions of 10 people since. The administration is planning to execute three more people before he leaves office and the killing spree ends.

These executions have sparked renewed calls to abolish the death penalty in the U.S., and it’s clear that American support for capital punishment has hit record lows. However, the future of this practice will be decided by politicians or the courts.

While it’s unlikely that the Supreme Court with its conservative majority will rule the death penalty unconstitutional, President-elect Joe Biden has promised to push for legislation to end the practice at the federal level.

As for the states, home to the majority of the country’s roughly 2,500 death row prisoners, Biden wants to incentivize them to end capital punishment, though he has yet to release details on how.

Until then, Biden can take these steps in his first days in office to curb the federal death penalty:

Commute the sentences of more than 50 people on federal death row
Instruct the Bureau of Prisons to stop all executions that might be scheduled by President Trump after Jan. 20
Order the Department of Justice to stop seeking the death penalty in current and future cases

Critics have argued that former President Barack Obama’s failure to clear federal death row before he left office paved the way for Trump to execute nearly a quarter of its prisoners, so Biden’s action on this front will be crucial.