President-elect Donald Trump has chilling plans to use his second term to expand the federal death penalty. This expansion continues the killing spree he initiated in the final six months of his first presidency. His plans for a second term include sentencing more people to die, expanding the category of crimes punishable by death, and killing all 40 people currently on federal death row.
By contract, Joe Biden has said again and again that he opposes the death penalty. He has a chance to prove that he meant what he said. The president still has time to commute all current death sentences to life in prison.
Here are five reasons why Biden should act immediately.
1. Trump has an unprecedented, extreme, and inhumane stance on capital punishment. He plans to expand the category of crimes punishable by death, sentence more people to die, and kill every person currently on federal death row.
2. He’s already shown us that he will act on these promises. In its final year, the Trump administration executed 13 people, a majority of whom were people of color, in an unparalleled execution spree. Trump executed more people than any administration in 120 years and more than the 10 previous administrations combined.
3. Despite increasing opposition to the death penalty among Americans, Trump has called for the expansion of the death penalty for even less serious offenses, like selling drugs, and for the death of those who leak information against him in the press or undermine him politically.
4. This effort to expand the use of the death penalty is immoral, does not make us any safer, and will magnify the systemic racial discrimination that already plagues our capital punishment system.
5. Biden was the first president to openly oppose the death penalty. He must follow through on his campaign promise to address the failed death penalty and commute federal death sentences. Doing so will not just fulfill his campaign promise, it will uphold his commitment to racial justice and stop Trump from going on another killing spree.
Follow the link to tell Biden to act now: https://action.aclu.org/petition/tell-president-biden-commute-row