During Trump’s first term, he oversaw a series of federal executions unprecedented in modern history.

US President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to increase the use of the death penalty in his second term, saying he will go after “rapists, murderers and monsters”.

After Trump announced on Tuesday that he would step down as president Joe Biden Use the presidential pardon power to commute the sentences of nearly all federal death row inmates to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“As soon as I take office, I will direct the Department of Justice to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers and monsters,” Trump said in a social media post. “We will once again be the rule of law. nation!”

During his first term, Trump resumed federal executions after a nearly 20-year moratorium, overseeing 13 people. That number is higher than any president in modern history.

Although the American people continue to support death penalty Gallup polls show support for crimes such as murder at its lowest point in decades, falling from 80% in 1994 to 53% in 2024. Over the same period, disapproval rose from 16% to 43%.

Supporters of the death penalty say it can give families of violent crime victims a sense of closure and act as a deterrent to crime, although studies have found little evidence to support the latter.

Heather Turner, whose mother was killed in a 2017 bank robbery in Conway, South Carolina, blasted Biden’s decision in a social media post, saying: “The pain and trauma we have endured over the past seven years is unbearable. Descriptive.”

Opponents say innocent people are wrongly executed before they are acquitted, the process of executing someone is lengthy and expensive, and the death penalty is disproportionately applied to people of color.

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump leaned heavily into nativist attacks on immigrants, painting them as dangerous criminals and saying he would seeking death penalty Targeting undocumented immigrants who commit crimes such as murder and rape against U.S. citizens.

Immigrants have lower violent crime rates than people born in the U.S., immigrant rights group says Dark background Trump’s focus on immigrant violence.

The three federal death row inmates whom Biden chose not to commute were all convicted of hate crimes.

they are Dylann RoofIn 2015, he killed nine black congregants at Mother Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina; in 2013 boston marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; Robert Bowers launched the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history, gunning down 17 congregants. tree of life synagogue In Pittsburgh in 2018, 11 people died.