President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday ordering his top prosecutors to seek the death penalty “in all appropriate cases” in Washington, D.C.
“You kill somebody, or if you kill a police officer, a law enforcement officer — death penalty,” Trump said to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday.
“It’s a very interesting capital punishment, capital city. Capital, capital, capital,” he added.
Washington repealed the death penalty in 1981. Trump’s order instructs Attorney General Pam Bondi and D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro to push the punishment against murderers.
The order says Bondi and Pirro “shall, to the maximum degree practicable, pursue Federal jurisdiction with respect to cases involving crimes committed in the District of Columbia for which the death penalty is available under Federal law.”
When Trump asked Bondi to address the announcement, she said that “not only are we seeking it in Washington, D.C., but all over the country — again.”
A White House fact sheet supports Trump’s enforcement of the death penalty.
“By enforcing the death penalty law against D.C.’s worst offenders, President Trump underscores his determination to protect our Nation’s capital for all Americans who visit and reside there and ensure violent criminals face the toughest consequences under law,” according to a White House fact sheet about the memo.
Trump federalized the Metropolitan Police Department last month, citing an increase in violent crime.
While the federalization order has since expired, hundreds of National Guard members still patrol the capital’s streets. Trump said that Washington residents “were living in hell” before the emergency order.
Washington went 12 days without a homicide after the emergency order, and crime fell. There were also signs that the tourism and restaurant business declined during the takeover.
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, criticized Trump for his death penalty order.
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“There are reasons to think the District of Columbia ranks as one of the most anti-death penalty jurisdictions in the country and that only a small proportion of its people support capital punishment,” they noted.
“[Trump] has already shown his willingness to police Washingtonians using an outside occupation force. It looks like he also wants a very ‘distinct and dwindling minority’ — composed partly of his own employees — to condemn them to die,” they added.
The last person Washington executed for his crimes was Robert Carter in 1957. Carter murdered an off-duty police officer.
