Federal prosecutors are seeking death for a convicted killer in New York but not for an accused mass shooter in Texas, frustrating death penalty opponents.
that would ban capital punishment on the federal level — said the Justice Department’s decisions in the Saipov and Crusius cases are “plainly contradictory.”
Federal authorities carried out 13 executions in the final six months of Donald Trump’s presidency. Before that, three people had been executed for federal crimes between 1988 and 2020, the most recent in 2003. The answer could have a direct bearing on another high-profile case, as the Justice Department is still deliberating over whether to pursue a capital case against Payton Gendron, a White man who faces 27 hate-crime and gun-related offenses in the fatal shooting of 10 Black people in a Buffalo grocery store last year.
Administration officials cautioned that because Garland has not authorized any new death penalty cases, it does not mean he is firmly opposed to doing so. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing active legal cases.