(UnitedVoice.com) – During his 2020 election campaign, President Joe Biden pledged to bring in legislation to eliminate the federal death penalty and encourage states to do the same. Opponents of execution have been growing restless for two years already. Now they could be in for a serious disappointment, as despite Biden’s promises, the Department of Justice is allowing a Manhattan federal court to seek the death penalty for a convicted killer.
Another Biden Campaign Promise
As a candidate, Biden promised to end the use of capital punishment at the federal level, setting an example he hoped states would follow. His campaign website argued that because innocent people have been mistakenly executed in the past, capital punishment should be replaced by life without parole. After his inauguration, death penalty opponents waited for him to bring in the promised law to end federal death sentences.
And waited.
Barely three months after Biden took office, anti-execution campaigners were getting uneasy at the administration’s lack of action. The president had hit the ground running with a flurry of executive orders on other issues — but nothing on the death penalty. The White House made soothing noises about how Biden had “grave concerns about capital punishment,” but he didn’t issue an executive order barring federal executions, and he didn’t ask congress to introduce legislation that would abolish the federal death penalty statute. Activists warned that, without that legislation, new death sentences could be issued and existing ones carried out.
Prosecutors Seek Death
On January 26, a jury in a Manhattan federal court found Sayfullo Saipov guilty of eight counts of murder. On October 31, 2017, the Uzbek immigrant rented a pickup truck; he then mowed down and killed eight people on a Hudson River bike path, and injured 11 others. Prosecutors say he committed the atrocity to impress Islamic State and gain membership of the terrorist group — and they want him executed. On February 6, the same jury that convicted him will reconvene to decide on sentencing. If they all vote to execute him, Saipov will be sentenced to die by lethal injection.
Although the DOJ requested the death penalty for Saipov during the Trump administration, Biden has made no move to block it. Although Attorney General Merrick Garland has issued a moratorium on federal executions, the New York court can still impose a death sentence on Saipov, and if it does, he’ll be sent to death row. Then, if a future president revokes the moratorium — as Trump did — he could be executed.
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