WASHINGTON (AP) — Just a few months after he took office, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a moratorium to halt federal executions — a stark contrast…
Just a few months after he took office, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a moratorium to halt federal executions — a stark contrast after his predecessor carried out 13 in six months. Under Garland’s watch and a president who vowed to abolish the death penalty, the Justice Department took on no new death penalty cases.
That changed Friday as federal prosecutors said they would seek capital punishment for a white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket. The decision doesn’t change the halt on federal executions, but Garland’s first approval of a new capital prosecution opens a new chapter in the long and complicated history of the death penalty in the U.S.
Those complexities have been on full display in recent years. President Joe Biden campaigned in part on a promise to abolish it but has taken few concrete steps to do so. The Justice Department has pulled back significantly on the use of capital punishment under Garland’s leadership, but also has shown a continued willingness to use it in certain cases.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates didn’t take issue with the decision in the Buffalo case Friday, saying the president has discussed his views on the issue and would leave individual cases to the appropriate authorities. The Justice Department, in keeping with its practice on ongoing cases, did not explain its decision.
“It’s a little hard to identify a consistent approach,” said Eric Berger, a law professor at the University of Nebraska. “This Justice Department is far more reluctant to use the death penalty, certainly than the Trump administration was, and far more cognizant of the problems, but it’s not willing to throw away the death penalty altogether.”
Under Garland, the Justice Department has reversed more than two dozen decisions to seek the death penalty, including for alleged gang members accused in the deaths of two teens in New York.
