U.S. | Death penalty divide: Trump urges more capital punishment while Harris silent

Former President Donald Trump has signaled he will continue his administration’s aggressive pursuit of the death penalty if he is elected, while Vice President Kamala Harris has gone mum on the issue.

Trump made his most detailed comments yet on capital punishment since launching his campaign during remarks at the Arizona border on Thursday, at the same time that Harris has come under scrutiny for her silence on the matter.

As he was addressing punishments for illegal migrants who commit crimes, Trump said he would impose the death penalty “for anyone guilty of child or woman sex trafficking.”

Trump has also repeatedly suggested that a solution to the nation’s drug trafficking and addiction problems is to impose the death penalty on drug traffickers, citing countries such as China, which he has said successfully combats illegal drugs with a punishment of death. The former president reiterated those sentiments Thursday.

“We’ll also impose the death penalty on major drug dealers and traffickers,” Trump said. “In other countries on their immigration papers, there is a statement that says, ‘Death for drug traffickers.’ Big letters, big bold letters, 10 times the size of everything else on the page. I saw it this morning, and those are the countries where they have no problem with drugs.”

It is unclear which countries Trump was referring to, but Politifact found in 2018 that Trump accurately made similar comments about China and Singapore imposing the death penalty for drug trafficking. The outlet also noted, though, that there is little data to assess how effective the policy was in those countries.

Trump said his administration would also seek the death penalty for those who kill police, U.S. Border Patrol officers, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Lastly, Trump addressed the protracted period of time that criminals wait on death row, saying his administration would seek a “quicker trial, not a trial that lasts 15 years and everybody gets exhausted.”

His comments align with the Trump administration’s historic use of the death penalty. 16 federal executions have been carried out since 1988, all by lethal injection. 13 of them were under Trump’s tenure, when Attorney General Bill Barr lifted an Obama-era freeze on them.

Harris, a former district attorney and California attorney general, has embraced a persona as “prosecutor” on the campaign trail, but she has a complicated history with the death penalty and has taken no position on it since she was chosen as Trump’s opponent.

During Harris’s tenure as vice president, the Department of Justice vowed to halt federal executions, but it did not entirely live up to that promise.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a moratorium on them in 2021 but changed gears in January when government prosecutors sought the death penalty for 20-year-old Payton Gendron. Gendron pleaded guilty to murdering 10 black people in a racially motivated attack at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in 2022.

Prosecutors under Garland also asked for the death penalty in 2 cases brought by the Trump administration: Robert Bowers’s murder of 11 people at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue and Islamic extremist Sayfullo Saipov’s murder of 8 people in a New York City bike path.

No federal executions have been carried out since Harris became vice president, but the DOJ’s authorization of the death penalty in rare cases upset opponents of it. Gendron is fighting his punishment in court, Bowers’s appeal is still playing out, and Saipov received a life sentence despite prosecutors asking for death. Bowers is among about 40 defendants currently sitting on death row.

20 years ago, Harris opposed the death penalty and received significant blowback when she announced as San Francisco district attorney that she would not seek it in the slaying of police officer Isaac Espinoza.

But later, when she campaigned for California attorney general, she said she would “enforce the death penalty as the law dictates.”

She once again flip-flopped on capital punishment when she unsuccessfully ran for president in 2019, saying she would institute a moratorium on it.

Now, amid a competitive campaign against Trump, Harris is facing a crossroads as she has embraced a tough-on-crime brand, at least when it comes to her opponent, whom she describes as a “convicted felon.” Her party has historically opposed the death penalty, but Trump has called for cracking down on crime with it.

In addition to Harris’s unclear stance on the topic, the newly released Democratic 2024 platform makes no mention of the death penalty, which the Huff Post observed was a first for the party since 2004.

A Harris campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Source: Washington Examiner, Staff, August 24, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________

Twitter/X | Facebook | Telegram | Contact Us

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

Alabama Set To Carry Out Execution This Week

Alabama is preparing to execute Jeremy Williams, who pled guilty to the 2021 rape and murder of five-year-old Kamarie Holland. The execution is scheduled for Thursday (August 13) at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. Williams, who is 41, requested the death penalty and waived his right to appeal, making this the first execution in Alabama this year.

Tennessee | The doctor who helps put prisoners to death

Dr. Mark Fowler assisted in the failed execution of a Tennessee prisoner. Physicians are meant to heal patients—why is he working in the death chamber? Mark Fowler, a physician with 25 years’ experience, stepped beneath the bright lights and approached the middle-aged man lying on a gurney. Around him, people in medical gowns prepared needles and sterile tubing. It had all the appearances of a hospital setting. Fowler had been called in to help establish an IV line through which the 57-year-old man, Tony Carruthers, would be injected with pharmaceutical drugs. The team had struggled to find a vein, so Fowler was summoned to set a central line—an intravenous catheter inserted into the major vein below the collarbone.

Alabama executes Jeremy Williams

Tennessee and Oklahoma have put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men in one day. Tennessee and Oklahoma put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other Thursday, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men by lethal injection in one day for the first time since 2010. The Tennessee man was executed for killing a maid at a motel in 1985, and the Oklahoma man for killing his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, a man was put to death Thursday evening for killing a 5-year-old girl he had paid her mother to abuse.

Tennessee executes Darrell Hines

The state has spent millions of dollars over decades to execute a seriously ill man who was already incarcerated. The state of Tennessee executed death row inmate Darrell Hines Thursday morning, according to an advocacy group. No formal announcement of the execution has been issued by state leaders yet. The execution was slated for 10 a.m. Thursday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. [DPN update] Hines was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. CDT. His last meal was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, corn, fries, biscuits, a chicken sandwich, chocolate chip cake, and sweet tea.

The 'Black Widow' shakes Iran: 10 death sentences for a serial killer who killed 12 men

Kolthum Akbari, an Iranian woman widely dubbed the “Black Widow,” was convicted of serial murders of elderly men she married, often temporarily. Official accounts generally center on 11 murders (plus one attempted murder), though Akbari herself gave varying figures and investigations suggested she had many more marriages. The sentencing occurred primarily in September 2025 in Mazandaran Province, with ongoing reporting and updates into 2026. The 56- to 59-year-old killer confessed to killing at least 11 elderly men after temporarily or officially marrying them; Iranian authorities have linked her to additional marriages and possible further victims.

Tennessee set to execute Anthony Darrell Hines

Barring any last-minute interventions, the Tennessee Department of Correction will execute Anthony Darrell Hines by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville Thursday morning. This week, two courts had the opportunity to halt the execution: the federal court in Middle Tennessee and the U.S. Supreme Court. Gov. Bill Lee announced Tuesday he personally would not prevent the execution. “After deliberate consideration of Anthony Darrell Hines’ request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene,” he said in a written statement. The U.S. Supreme Court has not granted a stay or reprieve.

Oklahoma executes Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez

Oklahoma has carried out 1 of 3 executions set for the same day in the United States in another sign of the resurgence of the death penalty in the country. Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his common-law wife in 2003 at their Oklahoma City home. He admitted to police he shot her twice during an argument. Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, did not fight for his life, stunning his attorneys in July when he told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that he didn't want clemency. "It's time for me to pay for what I did," he said.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issues three death penalty reprieves

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued execution reprieves for three death row inmates on Friday. In a statement, DeWine said he issued reprieves for Keith LaMar, Scott Group, and Davel Chinn, all of whom were set to be executed early next year. LaMar was scheduled to be executed on Jan. 13, 2027. He was convicted of aggravated murder for the deaths of five inmates during a 1993 riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville. He received the death penalty for four of the killings. His new execution date is Jan. 13, 2030. Watch the latest NBC4 headlines in the video player above.

Arizona prosecutors seek death penalty a second time for 2 inmates

County Attorney Brad Miller said Aug. 6 that the nature of the attack and both men's past criminal records meet the strict legal bar required for execution under Arizona law. FLORENCE, Ariz. - Pinal County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against two inmates accused of violently killing a fellow prisoner behind bars, officials announced Thursday. Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller filed a Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty against Pete Van Winkle and Tracy Hampton in connection with the fatal attack on Kenneth Thompson.

Iran’s War on Women: Executions, Floggings, and the Politics of Fear

The Iranian regime is increasingly using death sentences, corporal punishment, and judicial persecution against women—not only to silence dissent but also to intimidate a society demanding change. The Iranian regime has long viewed women as central to the country’s struggle for freedom—and therefore as central targets of repression. The nationwide uprising of 2022 fundamentally altered the political landscape, demonstrating that Iranian women were no longer merely participants in protest movements but among their principal organizers and symbols. Since then, the authorities have steadily intensified their campaign against women, expanding the use of executions, imprisonment, corporal punishment, and judicial intimidation.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog