During his first term in office, Trump has overseen a number of terrorist attacks that are unprecedented in modern history.
United States President-elect Donald Trump has promised to increase the use of the death penalty during his second term in office, saying he will go after “rapists, criminals, and monsters”.
Trump's announcement on Tuesday came as the outgoing president Joe Biden he used his presidential pardon power to commute the sentences of nearly all death row inmates to life in prison without parole.
“Once inaugurated, I will lead the Department of Justice to vigorously enforce the death penalty to protect American families and children from rapists, murderers, and predators,” Trump said in a statement. “We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!”
In his first term in office, Trump resumed the assassination of the government after a hiatus of nearly 20 years, overseeing the execution of 13 people. That number was higher than any president in modern history.
While the US people continue to support the death penalty for crimes like murder, support is at its lowest point in decades, falling from 80 percent in 1994 to 53 percent in 2024, according to a Gallup poll. At the same time, opposition has risen from 16 percent to 43 percent.
Proponents of the death penalty say the death penalty can give family members of violent victims a sense of closure and act as a deterrent to crime even though research has found little evidence of victims.
“The pain and suffering we've experienced over the past 7 years has been unimaginable,” Heather Turner, whose mother was killed during a 2017 bank robbery in Conway, South Carolina, said in a social media post criticizing Biden's decision.
The plaintiffs claim that innocent people have been wrongfully executed before they can be extradited, that the execution process is long and expensive and that the death penalty has been carried out disproportionately against people of color.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump leaned heavily on attacks on immigrants who he portrayed as dangerous criminals and said he would do so. seek the death penalty for undocumented immigrants who commit crimes such as murder and rape against US citizens.
Immigrants commit violent crimes at lower rates than the US-born, and immigrant rights groups note darkness below in Trump's thoughts on the violent acts committed by immigrants.
Three inmates on death row that Biden chose not to commute were found guilty of inciting hate speech.
He is Dylan Roofwho killed nine black members of Mrs. Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina in 2015; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who carried out the worst anti-Semitic attack in US history when he killed 17 attendees at a meeting. Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, killing 11.