By Luis Arroyo Zapatero and Antonio Muñoz Aunión. Founders of the International Academic Network against the Death Penalty.
Hidden in the endless catalog of executive orders is one that also confronts all of Latin America and Europe and the principle of humanity: one month after taking office as president, Donald Trump has ordered the Department of Justice, through the Attorney General's Office, to resume the federal capital punishment and lift the moratorium on executions by Executive Order no. 14164 on Restoration of the Death Penalty and Public Security Protection.
Among the arguments that justify their decision is, on the one hand, that "the American people, through their legitimate representatives, have reaffirmed the effectiveness of capital punishment for its deterrent effects, as a vehicle for victims to obtain justice and emotional satisfaction. In this way, the history of the Department of Justice that has promoted federal death penalty sentences for the most horrendous crimes under the rule of law is resumed and it closes to a period in which the popular will had been supplanted by personal beliefs, during which, violators of minors, mass murderers, terrorists and other dangerous criminals stopped being charged with the death penalty, which seriously undermined and damaged public opinion in the criminal justice system, for the victims of these crimes, an inaction that betrayed the sacred duty of doing Justice.”
In order to comply with the Presidential Order, the Attorney General has ordered “to lift the moratorium of the previous Administration in force since July 1, 2021 immediately, so that when a capital punishment is imposed by a federal court, the Department will proceed to execute it in accordance with the Law. Secondly, “federal prosecutors will request the capital punishment for crimes that Congress has classified as capital and where there are no extenuating circumstances,” while expanding the catalog of crimes for that the death penalty must be urged, which even applies to foreigners who cross national borders and are in the United States without legal status.
Likewise, the Capital Punishment Review Committee of the Office of the Attorney General is obliged to review its decisions not to request the death penalty for those cases in which it can be requested during the period from January 20, 2021 to January 19, 2025, a review that will take place within a maximum period of 120 days, paying special attention to those linked to cartels or transnational criminal organizations, capital crimes committed by irregular immigrants, and in territories Indians, or within federal maritime and territorial jurisdiction.
Finally, the Presidential Instruction obliges the Department of Justice to modify any previous order regarding the application of the so-called "Justice Manual" on the reviews previously ordered by the Administration. Likewise, and within a period of 90 days, this Office will assess whether the use of a single component in lethal injection, pentobarbital, complies with the requirements of the Eighth Amendment, and as part of this examination it will evaluate whether it is necessary to include other forms of execution in accordance with the Federal Penal and Procedural Code and will evaluate all possible ways to reinforce the federal capital punishment as a useful mechanism to punish crimes, which especially includes carrying it out. In turn, it orders the Department to take all necessary measures to obtain a reevaluation of the judicial precedents that have limited the authority of state and federal governments to impose the capital sentence. The Federal Bureau of Prisons will work with state prison systems to ensure there are sufficient supplies of lethal drugs and resources to carry out executions.
Finally, and in response to President Biden's commutation of the 37 sentences for federal crimes, "the Department of Justice will proceed with the following directive: first, a public forum will be opened for the victims' relatives to express how these commutations affected them personally; second, the capital sentence for those sentenced commuted by state legislation will be sought within current law, after consultation with relatives and other interested parties; third, and finally, the necessary measures will be taken so that “The conditions of confinement of those commuted correspond to the nature of their crimes, criminal history and other pertinent considerations.”
It is, therefore, not only about tariffs, but about an orgy of cruelty as a state policy, ranging from blackmail to Ukraine, the promotion of genocide in Gaza and the kidnapping of people and their sending to Bukele's super prison. In short, with this executive order there is the new enthronement of capital punishment, which the EU Human Rights Convention radically prohibits in its first article and abolished in Mexico in 2005.
In everything stated and in the way in which they express it, they clearly present their desperation, with lies and lack of respect for the truth and scientific knowledge, since not only is it already proven that capital punishment has no intimidating force superior to life imprisonment, which is also seen in the fact that homicide rates do not vary depending on whether or not each State has capital punishment. It also breaks with a very clear trend towards the reduction of sentences and capital executions in the last 20 years, as an expression of the rejection that their cruelty entails and to avoid the irreversible condemnation of innocent people, thus they have been reduced from the 98 executed in 1999 to 25 since 2019 and following. On the other hand, more than 8 States have abolished capital punishment or have adopted moratoriums in the last 10 years, so that currently 27 States have abolished it, four of them are subject to a moratorium, meaning that it is maintained in only 23 States.
The executive order is raised against one of the most important values of the Rule of Law, which is the prohibition of establishing retroactive punishments, such as executing capital sentences for those who have had them commuted by the previous president and their death replaced by life imprisonment. Professor Bessler will suffer, as he has made it clear that the Marquis of Beccaria's work was in all the libraries of the founding fathers of the United States. It is, furthermore, a humiliation for more than half of the American citizens who are against capital punishment. The decline in favor of the death penalty has brought the figure down from 80% in 1994 to 53%. But extremists abuse and lie very successfully.
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