Trump's death penalty push faces resistance in some red states

Yahoo

08-03-2025

A firing squad chair, left, was added to South Carolina's execution chamber in 2021 after state law mandated the method as an option. The state's electric chair sits under a cover. More than a dozen states are considering bills on capital punishment. (South Carolina Department of Corrections)
Even as President Donald Trump and other national Republican leaders push to expand the use of capital punishment, some GOP-led states are moving in the opposite direction.
In an executive order he signed his first day in office, Trump directed the U.S. attorney general to seek the death penalty 'for all crimes of a severity demanding its use.' In two specific circumstances — when a law enforcement officer is murdered or when the defendant accused of a capital crime is an immigrant in the country without legal status — the government will pursue the death penalty 'regardless of other factors.'
The Biden administration in 2021 had imposed a moratorium on federal executions.
Additionally, Trump's order directs the U.S. Department of Justice to help states obtain lethal injection drugs, though it remains unclear how it will do so. The order also instructs the attorney general to encourage state attorneys general and district attorneys to pursue capital charges for all eligible crimes.
Trump's order applies only to federal crimes. Each state has its own death penalty laws for state crimes.
But growing anti-death penalty sentiment in the states may limit the impact of Trump's directive. From proposed moratoriums to repeal efforts, state lawmakers are debating the future of capital punishment amid concerns over wrongful convictions, racial disparities and high costs. Crime experts question the death penalty's effectiveness as a deterrent, while some religious lawmakers say it is inconsistent with their opposition to abortion.
'The death penalty in this country is dying for reasons that an executive order cannot fix,' Corinna Lain, a law professor at the University of Richmond, told Stateline.
'[Trump's] executive order will be a mirror revealing where the American people stand on the death penalty. … People that want to go there anyway will be emboldened, and in other places, it will inspire resistance,' said Lain, who also is the author of the upcoming book 'Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection.'
In conservative Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio, Republican lawmakers have introduced bills to abolish the death penalty. In Georgia, the House earlier this month approved a bill that would prevent the execution of people who have intellectual disabilities. The measure, which lowers the burden of proof for intellectual disability claims and introduces a pretrial hearing on whether a defendant is intellectually disabled, now moves to the Senate for consideration.
And a GOP-sponsored bill in Oklahoma would pause all pending executions and prevent new execution dates from being scheduled.
However, another bill in Oklahoma would make people living illegally in the U.S. who are convicted of first-degree murder eligible for the death penalty. And some states, including Iowa and New Mexico, are considering bills that would expand capital punishment by making the murder of a police officer eligible for the death penalty. Both states have abolished capital punishment, but there have been multiple attempts over the years to reinstate it for specific crimes.
In Iowa, state Sen. Dennis Guth, a Republican, said the bill was introduced at the request of the family of Algona police Officer Kevin Cram, who was shot and killed in 2023 while trying to serve an arrest warrant.
Guth, one of the bill's sponsors, argued that reinstating the death penalty for certain crimes could provide closure for a victim's family and close friends, and that in this case it might keep others safe in the long run.
'It's good to have a deterrent that makes people pause and consider their actions before committing a crime,' Guth said.
Florida also enacted a law earlier this year mandating the automatic imposition of capital punishment for people living illegally in the U.S. convicted of capital crimes, including first-degree murder and child rape.
The death penalty in this country is dying for reasons that an executive order cannot fix.
– Corinna Lain, death penalty expert and law professor
Meanwhile, other states are focusing on execution methods. Lawmakers in Idaho approved a bill that could make it the first state to use the firing squad as its primary execution method. Arizona lawmakers are considering a bill to allow execution by firing squad, and legislators in Arkansas, Nebraska and Ohio are weighing bills that would add nitrogen gas hypoxia as an execution method.
'So long as capital punishment remains the law in Ohio, it should be followed, and duly enacted sentences should be carried out to provide victims' families with the justice and finality they deserve,' Ohio state Rep. Brian Stewart, a Republican who sponsored the bill to add nitrogen gas as an execution method in the state, said in a news release.
A Gallup poll conducted in October found that 53% of Americans support the death penalty for convicted murderers — the lowest level of support since the early 1970s. Young adults also are significantly less likely than older generations to favor capital punishment, the poll found.
However, in a Gallup poll conducted in October 2023, 81% of Republicans said they supported the death penalty, a percentage that has remained fairly constant for 25 years. Only 32% of Democrats said they supported capital punishment. Sixty-eight percent of Republicans said they believe the death penalty is applied fairly, while only 28% of Democrats did.
Since 2009, seven states — Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — have legislatively abolished the death penalty, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Twenty-seven states allow the death penalty, but four — California, Ohio, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have paused executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that studies capital punishment. The group does not take a position on the death penalty, but it is critical of how it is carried out.
Some states have struggled to carry out executions, with delays ranging from difficulties obtaining lethal injection drugs to pauses put into place after botched executions. In response, some states have turned to alternative methods, including nitrogen hypoxia and firing squads.
There are 14 remaining executions scheduled for this year, although two are in Ohio, where there is a pause. They include South Carolina's upcoming execution by firing squad — the state's first and the first in the United States in 15 years.
Since the mid-1990s, the number of new death sentences imposed in the United States also has dropped dramatically, from 316 in 1996 to 26 in 2024, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
'This drop in death sentencing speaks volumes of the future of the death penalty because today's death sentences are tomorrow's executions,' Lain said.
In Indiana, a Republican-authored House bill, which garnered bipartisan support, would have abolished the death penalty and commuted all existing death sentences to life without parole. It included a provision allowing defendants facing life without parole to petition for a review of intellectual disability. But the bill did not receive a committee hearing, which is what happened to a similar Democratic-sponsored bill in 2019.
Supporters of the current measure argued that capital punishment fails to deliver justice.
'That's all capital punishment is — it's the transferring of pain. It's not the completion of healing,' said Demetrius Minor, the national manager of Conservatives Concerned, a group advocating for a reexamination of capital punishment. Minor advocated for the bill.
Meanwhile, a GOP-authored bill in Indiana that would expand death penalty eligibility also failed to advance. Under that bill, obtaining or performing an abortion would be first-degree murder, punishable by death.
In Oklahoma, a Republican-authored Senate bill would temporarily halt executions while a task force reviews the state's death penalty practices. The bill has been sent to committee but has yet to receive a hearing. Last year, a similar proposal stalled on the House floor.
The bill would pause all pending executions, prevent new execution dates from being set and establish a five-member task force to assess whether the state has implemented the changes recommended in a 2017 review.
The bill also would suspend all statutes related to the death penalty until it is repealed, though it would not vacate existing death sentences.
'We can't prevent the execution of innocents, and we know for a fact in other states that we have executed innocent people,' Brett Farley, the state coordinator of Oklahoma Conservatives Concerned, told Stateline. Farley also is the executive director for the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma.
'If we believe that all life is sacred, as conservatives, then how can we justify executing someone that might be innocent or perhaps even is 100% guilty? Do they not have an opportunity for redemption?' Farley said.
Since 1973, 200 former death row prisoners have been exonerated nationwide, including 11 from Oklahoma, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
It remains unclear how Trump's executive order urging states to impose the death penalty will influence state leaders, particularly as some Republican lawmakers have called for a more cautious approach.
'A lot of the rhetoric we're seeing out of the Trump administration is mostly political because it's what folks think the Republican base wants to hear,' Farley said. 'But at the same time, we're seeing Republican legislators in a number of states push back on that and say, 'No, we need to hit the pause button here.''
Even in states that still allow the death penalty, logistical and legal challenges persist.
'Lethal injection is beset by a number of problems, and those problems are actually insurmountable,' Lain told Stateline. 'States can't get the drugs, while the pharmaceutical companies don't want to sell them the drugs. States also cannot get qualified medical people to carry this out.'
Legal battles over execution protocols and wrongful convictions also continue to influence policy decisions and public perception.
Trump's order came just days after former U.S Attorney General Merrick Garland withdrew the federal Department of Justice's protocol for federal executions, which permitted single-drug lethal injections using pentobarbital. Garland's review raised concerns about the drug's potential to cause 'unnecessary pain and suffering,' particularly lung damage that creates the sensation of drowning.
The first Trump administration carried out 13 federal executions — the most under any modern president. Since then, Trump has repeatedly advocated for expanding capital punishment, particularly for drug traffickers. His new administration could reinstate the pentobarbital protocol.
In December, Tennessee announced it would begin using pentobarbital but initially refused to release its new execution manual. The Tennessee Department of Correction eventually released a redacted version in January, revealing plans to administer a single 5-gram dose.
The new manual contains only a single page on lethal injection chemicals, with no specific instructions for testing, storing and administering the drugs. It also removes the requirement that the drugs come from a licensed pharmacist.
The department's commissioner also now has the authority to deviate from the protocol whenever deemed necessary.
Fifteen states, including Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Texas, have previously used pentobarbital in executions, while at least four others — Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana and North Carolina — have plans to use it, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Although executions in the U.S. are at a historic low, the states that still carry them out have increasingly shrouded the process in secrecy — particularly how and where they obtain lethal injection drugs. Many states, including Tennessee, argue that this secrecy is necessary to protect those involved in the execution process.
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: [e-mail].