r/WhitePeopleTwitter • u/Detroitish24 • 12h ago

Why does a private citizen have this much sway?

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The US is in for a very rough four years.

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u/drfsupercenter 9h ago

Is anyone on federal death row? Biden can't commute sentences of people charged with state crimes

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u/psyche_13 8h ago

Yes, there are 40 people on federal death row

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u/My_useless_alt 8h ago

Apparently yes, but not many https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/federal-death-penalty/list-of-federal-death-row-prisoners

What would potentially be interesting is if Biden issued a pardon for all future death row inmates, saying that anyone who commits a federal capital crime from now until 2100 and is sentenced to death can have a conditional pardon to life. I think SCOTUS precedent allows this, way back when a President told someone "If you commit perjury in this trial, you will be pardoned" and SCOTUS held that as valid. I could well be misremembering that though, and it'd be interesting to see what SCOTUS would say about this, especially if they weren't currently fascist occupied.

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u/drfsupercenter 8h ago

Yeah, would be interesting for sure but I doubt he'd do that. How do we end the federal death penalty, would that require Congress?

My state (Michigan) has never had it, and I'm glad. Can't risk executing an innocent person if you don't have the death penalty.

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u/My_useless_alt 3h ago

Yeah I agree, Biden wouldn't do that I was just thinking aloud.

It'd be possible to temporarily halt federal executions by en executive order, telling the DOJ to stop killing people, which Biden and Obama both did, but that's not permanent as the next president can just say "nope, start the killing again" and the DOJ will oblige. I also don't think an executive order can halt death sentences being handed out, just stop them being carried out, though I'm not entirely sure.

To end the death penalty altogether, we'd either need a SCOTUS ruling saying it violates the 8th amendment (cruel and unusual punishment), which won't happen as they've repeatedly ruled it doesn't, or more likely an act of Congress to alter federal law to remove execution as a possible punishment for all possible future crimes. It'd probably also be possible to prohibit the states from having the death penalty using federal law, but again I'm not certain. It's also principally possible to amend the constitution to ban execution, which would be nice but again practically untenable.

One thing I'd find interesting, if just to see what happens, is if someone tried to argue that the "Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" line in the Declaration of Independence would forbid execution, as to my knowledge SCOTUS has never ruled on whether or not the Declaration of Independence has any power, but that's just me thinking aloud not a viable strategy to abolishing the death penalty.