Spotlighting how a change in federal Administrations could lead to a big change in federal capital punishment administration

Joe Biden campaigned on a pledge to work toward abolishing the death penalty, and the federal death penalty has been mostly (though not entirely) dormant during his time in office.  No federal executions and very few new federal capital cases have moved forward during his time in office.  (And while a President has almost no means to impact or even influence state capital practices, it is also notable that there have been relatively few state executions and state death sentences since 2021 as well.)  Though I doubt President Biden plans to make much of his capital punishment record in his re-election bid — especially because many in his base likley wish he would do more to advance abolition — I sense his approach to the death penalty would be largely the same if he were to get a second term in the Oval Office.

In contrast, and as highlighted by this new HuffPost piece, federal death penalty administration is surely likely to shift gears dramatically if we have another Trump Adminstration.  This piece's full headline highlights its coverage: "There's A GOP Plan For An Execution Spree If Trump Wins The White House: Buried on page 554 of the plan is a directive to execute every remaining person on federal death row — and dramatically expand the use of the death penalty."  Here are excerpts:

Trump, the GOP’s presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, has openly fantasized about executing drug dealers and human traffickers.  He reportedly suggested that officials who leak information to the press should be executed, too.  And behind the scenes, there’s a team of pro-Trump conservatives who are pushing for a second Trump term that involves even more state-sponsored killing than the first.

Last year, a coalition effort by conservative groups known as Project 2025 released an 887-page document that lays out policy goals and recommendations for each part of the federal government.  Buried on page 554 is a directive to execute every remaining federal death row prisoner — and to persuade the Supreme Court to expand the types of crimes that can be punished with death sentences.

Gene Hamilton, the author of the transition playbook’s Department of Justice chapter, wrote that the next conservative administration should “do everything possible to obtain finality” for every prisoner on federal death row, which currently includes 40 people.  “It should also pursue the death penalty for applicable crimes — particularly heinous crimes involving violence and sexual abuse of children — until Congress says otherwise through legislation,” he wrote.  In a footnote, Hamilton said that this could require the Supreme Court to overrule a previous case, “but the [Justice] department should place a priority on doing so.”

I have heard of Project 2025, but I am not at all sure how truly impactful its desired blueprints are regarding what we might expect from an actual Trump Administration.  After all, as noted in this post from July 2020, the "Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force" produced a big report calling for, among other items on a criminal-justice reform wish list, the future Biden Administration to: "abolish the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example."  Not only has that not happened, no formal steps have been taken by President Biden to make it happen.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this story relates to the possiblity that a future Trump Administration might seek to actively pursue or support the application of the death penalty in child rape cases.  Current Supreme Court Eighth Amendment doctrine, of course, holds that capital punishment for child rape is unconstitutional. See Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008).  But Florida enacted a new capital child rape statute last year, and Tennessee legislators recently sent a similar bill to its Governor.   Given that three of the four Justices in dissent in Kennedy are still on the Court (Justices Thomas, Alito and the Chief), while none of the Justices in the Kennedy majority is on still on this Court, there is strong reason to suspect the current Supreme Court might well be prepared to reconder Kennedy at some point.  That possibility might become even that much more likely if the US Justice Department was actively advocating for Kennedy's reversal.