WASHINGTON — President Donald J. Trump said this week that his administration would seek the death penalty for every murder committed in Washington, DC, a proposal that immediately ignited constitutional concerns, political backlash, and warnings that it could deepen racial fault lines in the capital.
The announcement comes as part of Trump’s broader effort to portray Washington as plagued by crime and mismanagement, according to the Washington Post, despite recent data showing the city experienced multiple homicide-free stretches earlier this year. On Tuesday, he declared a 12-day gap without proof of killings of his tougher security measures, which have included the deployment of National Guard troops and federal control of local police.
“This is about bringing safety back to the capital of the United States,” Trump said. “Murderers in Washington will face the strongest possible punishment.”
Constitutional and legal hurdles
Legal experts note that the District of Columbia abolished its death penalty more than four decades ago, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down laws that impose mandatory capital sentences.
“A mandatory capital sentence in all homicide cases would run headlong into decades of United States Supreme Court cases which have uniformly declared a mandatory death penalty law unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment,” said Ron Harper, a licensed paralegal who has handled thousands of criminal cases. “Courts have stressed that sentencing should permit individualized attention to mitigating factors.”
Emma Alves, a senior lawyer in Canada who has studied capital punishment law, underscored the limits of Trump’s approach. “Such a proposal by Trump to have all murders in Washington, DC under the death penalty runs squarely into the inability of the city to have local control over the death penalty,” she said.
Both Harper and Alves pointed to longstanding research showing that the death penalty has not been proven to deter violent crime. “When defendants act in a hasty manner or under the influence of substances, they are not calculating the possible punishment,” Harper said.
Political firestorm
The Biden administration imposed a moratorium on federal executions in 2021, placing Trump’s pledge in sharp contrast to the previous White House. During the past half century, fewer than 20 federal executions have been carried out, typically reserved for the most extreme cases. Trump’s vow would represent the broadest expansion of capital punishment in modern U.S. history.
Civil rights advocates reacted with alarm. Representative Ayanna Pressley, Democrat of Massachusetts, called the plan “deeply racist” and “fundamentally unjust,” warning that it would fuel polarization in a city where more than 40 percent of residents are Black.
“The death penalty is flawed and deeply racist,” she said. “Rather than militarize our cities, Donald Trump should prioritize what actually keeps people safe: affordable housing, mental health care, and gun violence prevention”.
A test for the courts
Any attempt to enforce Trump’s pledge is likely to be mired in lengthy appeals and constitutional challenges. The federal government could try to prosecute all homicides in the District as capital cases, but such a move would swamp the courts and correctional system.
“The social influence would be greater than in the courtrooms,” Harper said. “Mandatory death sentences tend to create lengthy appeals, which in some cases have cost more money than life imprisonment.”
The Guardian’s analysis framed the plan as “ugly racial politics,” suggesting it resurrects one of the United States’ most racially biased systems of punishment.
For now, the proposal remains more political theater than settled policy. But it has already reignited America’s decades-long battle over the role of capital punishment — and turned the nation’s capital into the center stage for that fight.
