While President Donald Trump and other national Republican leaders push to expand the use of capital punishment, some GOP-led states are taking steps in the opposite direction, Stateline reports. On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. attorney general to seek the death penalty for all crimes deemed severe enough to warrant it. Specifically, the order mandates pursuing the death penalty when a law enforcement officer is killed or when the defendant is an undocumented immigrant accused of a capital crime, regardless of other circumstances. Trump's order also directs the U.S. Department of Justice to assist states in acquiring lethal injection drugs, although the specifics of how this will be done remain unclear. Additionally, the order urges state attorneys general and district attorneys to pursue capital charges for all eligible crimes. The order applies solely to federal offenses, with each state maintaining its own laws regarding the death penalty for state crimes. These moves countered the previous administration's approach. In 2021, the Biden administration imposed a moratorium on federal executions and at the end of his term President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of most of the inmates on federal death row to life without parole.
Growing anti-death penalty sentiment in several states may limit the impact of Trump's directives. Lawmakers are debating the future of capital punishment, with proposals for moratoriums and efforts to repeal it, driven by concerns over wrongful convictions, racial biases, and high costs. Experts also question whether the death penalty effectively deters crime, while some religious lawmakers argue it contradicts their pro-life beliefs. “The death penalty in this country is dying for reasons that an executive order cannot fix,” Corinna Lain, a law professor at the University of Richmond, told Stateline. “[Trump’s] executive order will be a mirror revealing where the American people stand on the death penalty. … People that want to go there anyway will be emboldened, and in other places, it will inspire resistance,” said Lain, who also is the author of the upcoming book “Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection.” In conservative states like Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio, Republican lawmakers have introduced bills aimed at abolishing the death penalty. In Georgia, the House recently passed a bill to prevent the execution of individuals with intellectual disabilities. The legislation, which lowers the standard of proof for intellectual disability claims and introduces a pretrial hearing to assess a defendant's intellectual disability, now heads to the Senate for further review. Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, a GOP-backed bill would suspend all pending executions and prevent the scheduling of new execution dates. On the other hand, another bill in Oklahoma seeks to make individuals who are living in the U.S. illegally and convicted of first-degree murder eligible for the death penalty. Additionally, some states, including Iowa and New Mexico, are considering measures to expand capital punishment by making the murder of a police officer a capital crime. Though both states have abolished the death penalty, there have been several attempts over the years to reinstate it for certain offenses.