Entries tagged with “Joe Biden”

Aug 18, 2026

Article of Interest: Law Review Article Examines How the Federal Death Penalty Reflects National Death Penalty Trends

In her February 2026 article published by the Georgia State University Law Review, University of the District of Columbia Law Professor Ngozi Ndulue argues that recent trends have shifted the federal death penalty “from being a laggard to being a leader in national death penalty trends.” Written before the most recent changes to federal death penalty policy by the Trump administration were implemented, her article highlights how federal death penalty cases, though numerically few, mirror…

May 05, 2026

New Analysis: In Seeking Firing Squad, Electrocution, and Nitrogen Gas Executions, DOJ Misrepresents American History and Law

On April 24, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released a report proposing an expansion of the federal death penalty, including adding firing squad, electrocution, and lethal gas as execution methods. The DOJ characterizes the Biden Administration’s moratorium on executions as “an unprecedented break from the [DOJ]’s longstanding approach to the death penalty,” while casting this new effort as a return to form. The DOJ further claims that the three alternative methods of execution have a…

Apr 27, 2026

Department of Justice Releases Memo Calling for Expansion of Federal Death Penalty and New Methods

On April 24, 2026, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy released a detailed report, Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty, calling on the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to reinstate use of a single-drug (pentobarbital) execution protocol, and urging Congress to enact sweeping legislative changes that would expand the reach and speed of the federal death penalty. Alongside the release of the report, DOJ announced that it has directed BOP to immediately reinstate…

Feb 12, 2026

Federal Judge Rebukes DOJ and Blocks Transfer of Former Federally Death-Sentenced Prisoners to Supermax Prison

In an order dated February 11, 2026, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy J. Kelly issued a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the federal government from transferring many former federally death-sentenced prisoners to the notorious Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, known as “ADX.” Judge Kelly found it “likely” that the government violated the prisoners’ Fifth Amendment due process rights when it deprived them of a “meaningful opportunity to challenge” their transfer…

Feb 10, 2026

Federal Government Says It Will Transfer Former Federal Death-Sentenced Prisoners to Supermax Prison Within Weeks

The federal government says it plans to transfer “almost all” former federal death row prisoners whose sentences were commuted by President Biden to the nation’s most notorious and restrictive prison within the next several weeks, according to a court filing dated February 4, 2026. In a two-page notice filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department informed Judge Timothy J. Kelly that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) intends to move the prisoners from the…

Apr 21, 2025

A.C.L.U. Lawsuit Seeks to Prevent Transfer of Former Federally Death-Sentenced Prisoners to “Supermax” Prison

Jan 21, 2025

Among Flurry of First-Day Executive Orders, President Trump Issues Order on the Death Penalty

On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed more than two dozen Executive Orders, including a call to “restore” the federal death penalty. The Order, while lacking many important details, instructs the Department of Justice’s Attorney General to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use,” including the killing of a law enforcement officer or “a capital crime committed by an illegal alien present in this country” and to encourage state attorneys general to…

Jan 02, 2025

In Wake of President Biden’s Federal Commutations, North Carolina Governor Cooper Grants Clemency to 15 Death-Sentenced Prisoners, the Largest Grant of Capital Clemency in State History

On December 31, 2024, during his last day in office, outgoing North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper commuted the death sentences of 15 men on the state’s death row to life in prison without parole. “These reviews are among the most difficult decision a Governor can make and the death penalty is the most severe sentence that the state can impose,” said Gov. Cooper in a statement following the announcement of the commutations. “After thorough review, reflection, and prayer, I concluded that the…

Dec 09, 2024

Religious Groups, Former Corrections Officials, Pro-life Voices, and Many Others Urge President Biden to Commute Federal Death Sentences

In letters released on December 9, 2024, hundreds of stakeholders urged President Joe Biden (pictured) to commute all federal death sentences before his term ends, citing racial bias, systemic arbitrariness, and the failure of the federal death penalty to enhance public safety. This collective request reflects broad, bipartisan acknowledgement of the flaws in the capital punishment system and aligns with the national downward trend of support for the death penalty, now at historic lows. 40 men…

Nov 27, 2024

Biden Contemplates Federal Commutation Requests

On November 25, 2024, President Joe Biden pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys, an annual, symbolic tradition that highlights the president’s constitutional authority to issue pardons and commutations. Now, as President Biden sets to leave office in January 2025, 60 members of Congress and many others are urging him to grant clemency to the 40 men currently on federal death row. During his 2020 presidential campaign, President Biden said he would work to abolish the federal death penalty but there…

Sep 03, 2024

Articles of Interest: The New York Times Editorial Board Argues United States “Does Not Need the Death Penalty”

In an August 31, 2024, editorial from The New York Times, the newspaper’s editorial board writes that capital punishment is “immoral, unconstitutional and useless as a deterrent to crime,” and asserts that President Joseph Biden should follow through with his campaign pledge to end the federal death penalty. The Times believes “it would be an appropriate and humane finale to his presidency for Mr. Biden to fulfill that pledge and try to eliminate the death penalty for federal crimes.” Since…

Nov 10, 2023

A Veterans Day Review: Uneven Progress Understanding the Role of Military Service in Capital Crimes

In 2015, DPIC’s Battle Scars report brought worldwide attention to the issue of military veterans on death row. DPIC found approximately 300 veterans incarcerated under a sentence of death, representing at least 10% of death row, and many more who had been executed. Since that report, research and understanding about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), substance use disorders, and mental illness among veterans has only grown. A 2023 survey of members of the…

Oct 23, 2023

In New Podcast, Rush to Kill Documents 6‑Month Federal Execution Spree Under President Donald Trump’s Administration

In July 2020, President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, under the direction of Attorney General Bill Barr, resumed federal executions for the first time in 17 years. Over the course of the following six months, 13 federal death row prisoners were executed. During those six months, the WFIU News team was granted the opportunity to report on and witness all 13 executions at United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute in Indiana. In the time since these executions, the WFIU News team collected…

Oct 03, 2023

Analysis Shows Supreme Court’s Changing View of Death Penalty Cases

A recent analysis by Bloomberg Law concluded that death-sentenced prisoners have fewer avenues to relief at the Supreme Court than ever before. Bloomberg identified 270 emergency requests to stay executions since 2013 and found that the Court agreed to block an execution just 11 times. Since 2020, when the Court shifted to a 6 – 3 conservative majority following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Court has granted just two stays of…