Trump’s death penalty commitment to Washington, D.C. is ugly racial politics | Austin Sarat

District of Columbia implement It was last executed in 1957. That April, Robert Eugene Carter was killed in the killing of police officers as Carter tried to escape the robbery he had just committed.

At that time, laws in the U.S. capital sentenced Carter to death for the first-degree murder. he Died in an electric chair.

If Donald Trump acts in his own way, Washington DC soon saw the return of the death penalty. At a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the president promise Bring it back.

he explain: “If someone killed someone in Washington, D.C. in the capital, we’ll seek the death penalty.” In a conversation about selling government buildings to private real estate developers, the comment was almost a side comment, he said he would become rich when he finished Washington becoming a “crime-free city.”

The president continued, “By the way,” the president continued, his memory triggered by crimes in Washington. “Anyone murdered something in the capital, death penalty, death penalty, death penalty.” He repeated as if enjoying the famous word game on a deadly serious subject.

“This is a very powerful preventive measure,” he claimed. Not an effective deterrent. He muses that the country may not be “prepared for it” but asserts that “we have no choice.”

With typical Trump thriving, he insists that “everyone who hears it is consistent”, although it is unclear what he is referring to, the death penalty or so-called preventive capabilities.

President’s promise that all murderers will be sentenced to death in DC campaign The Supreme Court has long-term That is, the death penalty can never be mandatory. Furthermore, it involves complex racial politics that have always been associated with the use of the death penalty in the United States.

Before talking about these two issues, let’s take a look at the history of the District of Columbia’s death penalty. According to the Death Penalty Information Center: “The first recorded execution in Washington, D.C. was the hang of James McGirk in 1802.”

McGick Killed his pregnant wife and her twins. His Irish legacy is at the forefront of openly discussing his crimes and how he deserves punishment. A newspaper highlighted the fact that McGilke was “neither born in America nor received education.” It asked: “How long can we expect our indigenous young people to remain uncontaminated”?

In 1865, Mary Surratt conspired to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln Once was Hang in the area. There is another presidential assassin, Charles Guiteau,,,,, Execution There in 1882, President James Garfield was killed.

From McGick to Carter, everyone told 118 people Being executed In Washington, civilians or military authorities. It is no surprise that race played a key role in that history.

After 1962, the death penalty is no longer a mandatory punishment for murders in the city. In 1981, City Council abolition Ten years later, it is entirely decided by the number of votes.

But voter preference does not seem to bother the president. In this case, he doesn’t have to worry about this due to DC’s status and federal supervision of this.

This means that under the supervision of the Justice Department, not the supervision of local officials, the U.S. Attorney’s Office Responsible for turning the president’s plan into reality. No one would be surprised that the president hopes the death penalty will be part of his plan to get rid of crime in Washington, D.C.

On the first day of the second semester, he release The execution order directs the Attorney General to “death penalty for all serious sexual offences required for all serious sexual offences”.

Does this mean all murders and all murderers?

In 1976, the Supreme Court made it clear Don’t think so. The court dismissed a North Carolina statute that sentenced the death penalty to first-degree murder.

What Judge Potter Stewart said in this case is particularly illuminating because we consider what Trump discussed on Tuesday.

Stewart wrote: “In the United States, the history of mandatory death penalty regulations shows that the practice of sentences for all convicted of specific crimes is rejected by excessively harsh and inoperable rigidity. These two crucial indicators are evolving punitive standards to respect the punitive nature of society – attitudes to domination – both attitudes toward me and legislation – both determined – both determined – established – established – established – established – established – established – established – established – established.

Stewart explained: “American jurors have somewhat routinely ignored oaths since the Revolution, refusing to convict defendants because the death penalty is the automatic consequence of a guilty verdict… The nineteenth century journalists, politicians, jurors and jurors are often convicted of crimes over the men of forgiveness, a crime of ruling the rule of crime, effectively murdering a nobleman in the first degree.

He stressed the District of Columbia’s 1962 refusal to the mandatory death penalty, an important indicator of the “contemporary standard of decency.”

Stewart said that due to its severity and gravity, the death verdict must be said: “Appointment of specific considerations of the relevant aspects of personality and records of each convicted defendant before he was sentenced to death.”

Respecting such a constitutional goodwill is never a strong lawsuit by the President, especially when it hinders the policies he wants to adopt.

Besides being obvious unconstitutional, death sentences are restored for everyone who committed murder in Washington, D.C. Bringing back one of the most racist practices in this country To a place where more than 40% of residents are black.

We know that game Works at every stage of the death penalty process. Black defendants are more likely to be charged with death penalty and receive death penalty than whites, especially if the murdered person is white.

But the racial influence will not stop. Black people sentenced to death are more likely to be elected to be executed and They execute.

Trump may not know these details, but he probably knows how the death penalty is with many black people. As criminologist James Unever and his colleagues notes: “There is a clear racial divide in support of the death penalty, white preferences and blacks against this sanction. This divide has been going on for decades and remains statistically and essentially significant, even if control measures were introduced to achieve known attitude relevance of death penalty attitudes.

“However, racism can explain the meaningful part of this divide, while whites show hostility toward blacks and are more likely to accept lethal punishment from criminals.”

If federal law enforcement and put armed soldiers on the streets of Washington, DC Send a powerful white dominance signal Trump’s remarks about the death penalty reinforce this message in a city with a large black population. At that time, the court would defend the Supreme Court’s precedent for the mandatory death penalty and prevent it from being restored to the racial politics represented by the DC.

At the same time, it is worth remembering that the last person executed was a 28-year-old black man, Kill a white policeman And subject to a mandatory death penalty.

• Austin Sarat, professor of law and politics at Amherst College, Professor of William Nelson Cromwell, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including the Death Glasses: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty