Trump Seeks Execution Revival: First Target - Luigi Mangione

It didn’t come as a surprise when U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced this month that the federal government aims to pursue the death penalty for the nation’s most notorious alleged killer. Shortly after reclaiming his position, one of President Donald Trump’s initial executive orders instructed her to advocate for capital punishment wherever feasible. Luigi Mangione —who also has pending cases in New York and Pennsylvania related to the alleged killing of UnitedHealth Group CEO Brian Thompson—has been held at a federal detention center in Brooklyn since December, waiting for formal charges. Bondi made no secret of her desire for Mangione’s case to be pursued as a capital offense; she stated that doing so aligned with her commitment to "implement President Trump’s strategy to combat violent crime and Ensure American Safety." However, Mangione’s primary attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, characterized these efforts as both politically motivated and cruel. She expressed her views in a public statement: “Despite professing to safeguard lives from homicide, the federal authorities seek to sanction the planned execution—a form of sanctioned murder—of Luigi.” The previous week, a grand jury convened to discuss the matter. charged her client with four counts , including homicide involving a gun. Later today, he will enter his plea at Manhattan's Southern District courthouse, marking the inaugural death penalty case under what has been dubbed Trump Two.

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Both in terms of quantity and speed, Trump stands unmatched among presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries regarding federal executions. In the final half-year of his initial term—while public focus shifted due to issues like reopening schools, fatalities from COVID-19, developments with vaccines, civil rights demonstrations, incidents of police brutality, and the intense lead-up to the presidential election—the administration pursued an execution frenzy resulting in the deaths of 13 individuals on death row. This series began on July 14, 2020, marking the first time the federal government carried out such actions. Daniel Lewis Lee A man found guilty of murder, racketeering, and conspiracy, who spent more than twenty years on death row. During his term, President Trump oversaw the execution of twelve men and one woman, using pentobarbital as the lethal injection method.

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executions have been decreasing across the nation; however, they remain particularly uncommon within the federal system. Prior to Lee, the federal government hadn’t carried out an execution for 17 years. The Trump administration conducted more executions than preceding ones. The last ten presidents put together The last instance when a significant number of individuals faced execution under federal authority within a single presidential term occurred during Grover Cleveland’s second tenure in the 1890s. The Trump administration moved so swiftly with executions that Wesley Purkey was still in this situation. appeal pending in court When he met his end, the final one to perish, Dustin Higgs was executed just recently. four days prior to Biden’s inauguration and during his recovery from COVID ; he was African American, and his execution took place originally scheduled For Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth anniversary.

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Oddly enough, Trump's most vocal detractors seldom bring up his strong support for the death penalty. However, Trump compensates for this by frequently discussing it himself. "I'm all about the death penalty," he proclaimed at a campaign event. in 2016 "I've consistently backed the death penalty. I can't wrap my head around those who disagree... Some of my acquaintances, decent folks, argue that it's an unjust and harsh form of punishment. I just don't get it." He infamously stated this viewpoint. lobbied for the execution of the incorrectly convicted Central Park Five and asserts that imposing capital punishment on drug offenders would resolve the nation’s drug issues, using China and Singapore As proof that it functions. He aims to enforce capital punishment for rape , despite being an accused rapist himself. There were no federal executions during Biden’s presidency; he’d once promised he would abolish the death penalty At the federal level, however, his administration appeared indifferent, opting for a temporary halt to executions instead. By commuting the sentences of 37 individuals on death row, Biden chose not to pardon three others who might still be subjected to capital punishment. This decision has created an opportunity, which Trump seems eager to exploit.

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This might explain why Mangione’s capital case is progressing rapidly. Typically, the DOJ takes several months or sometimes up to a year to determine whether a case warrants the death penalty. Following the 2022 mass shooting in Buffalo, the department required almost two years to declare its decision on this matter. seeking the death penalty For the perpetrator Payton Gendron, the individual with white supremacist ideologies, who killed ten people However, Mangione had not yet faced indictment in federal court when Bondi declared her plans, appearing on Fox News Sunday. posting on Instagram To support her stance, she acted prior to the grand jury determining whether there was sufficient evidence for prosecutors to pursue the death penalty against Mangione. This publicity tour might have biased potential jurors who witnessed it. "As far as I know, the department didn’t even await the grand jury’s verdict on a federal indictment—a situation that hasn’t occurred previously," states Robin Maher, a former DOJ worker and federal public defender, currently serving as the head of the non-profit organization called the Death Penalty Information Center.

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The unprecedented events during Trump's time can be staggering. Why would we anticipate his administration to adhere to standard procedures? Sometimes, it's even more disheartening when they do follow through. The harshest aspect of executions carried out under Trump isn’t that they deviate from typical American practices; rather, it’s how closely they stick to protocols set up by states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama. Despite capital punishment being lawful in 27 states, four of them have halted execution proceedings. Similar to Trump’s approach, most state-sanctioned executions employ lethal injections. While authorities assert these methods cause no pain, numerous medical professionals and eyewitnesses contend otherwise. During the federal government’s previous wave of such actions, they utilized a particular drug sequence for lethal injections. pentobarbital , could lead the injected individual to experience pulmonary edema, causing their lungs to fill with liquid and blood-tinged froth. This may induce feelings of panic, distress, and as though they are drowning. A judge from Ohio likened the impact of pulmonary edema to waterboarding. Furthermore, numerous executioners lack competence, finding even setting up an intravenous line in an inmate’s arm challenging. As a result, executions often go awry, despite being overseen by those in charge — who are rarely medical professionals — spend hours poking needles all over inmates bodies’ and even cutting into their flesh to find a vein. Alabama’s executioners are so bad at this that the state has started using nitrogen gas instead . Some people facing death have chosen the primitive and unreliable electric chair simply to avoid a lethal injection. Over the last two months, two men in South Carolina have chosen to confront firing squad instead.

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Both states that enforce capital punishment and the federal government strive to keep their procedures confidential. Any requests for clarity on these methods are often ignored or heavily censored until nothing remains visible. Authorities argue that this opacity is necessary to safeguard those involved, yet it's equally plausible that they wish to conceal from taxpayers the substantial expenses incurred. Throughout Trump’s final series of federal executions, the The ACLU acquired documents from the Bureau of Prisons. that allowed it to calculate the cost of the first five alone: They cost about $4.7 million, or more than $900,000 per death. “People often assume that it is more expensive to keep someone in prison with a sentence other than death, but in fact, the death penalty is enormously resource-intensive,” says Maher. “Capital cases are many times more expensive than incarcerating someone in a maximum security prison for the rest of their natural life.” (A report from 2010 found that it could be as much as eight times more This principle would similarly apply to Mangione’s situation. Maher cites the costs stemming from extended trial and appeal proceedings, augmented personnel requirements, and numerous additional expenditures associated with housing death row prisoners in solitary confinement, among other factors. price of the medications themselves , which officials struggle to obtain In part due to Big Pharma's refusal to supply materials for executions, Maher argues that expanding capital punishment is "at odds with statements from the Trump administration, which has consistently emphasized efficiency and reducing costs for taxpayers." Even these corporations have their limits.

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taxpayers remain unaware of the expenses involved, and they likely have little understanding of how these costs are calculated. In the past autumn, a Gallup poll discovered that over fifty percent of participants backed the use of capital punishment for individuals found guilty of murder. Similar to most surveys, this query seemed detached from reality. Participants' responses were not influenced by cost considerations. Additionally, they remained unaware of the number of people sentenced to death who have later been cleared of charges. 100 over the last 5 decades — or that there’s There is no proof that the death penalty prevents criminal activities. They were not informed that one-third of the execution attempts carried out in 2022 failed or were unsuccessful. were botched or that numerous family members of murder victims oppose the death penalty . Capital cases move slowly and it could be years before Mangione’s is over. If he is convicted, if he is sent to death row, he would join three mass shooters: Dylann Roof, who killed nine people at a Black church in Charleston; Robert Bowers, who killed 11 at a synagogue in Pittsburgh; and the Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who with his brother killed three people and injured over 260 others. Mangione would be an outlier for another reason too: He could be the first person sentenced to death by a Manhattan jury in more than 60 years.

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