President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Sept. 25 directing his attorney general to fully implement the death penalty in Washington, D.C.
Signed in the Oval Office on Thursday, the document refers to capital punishment as “an essential part” of the U.S. legal system in deterring and punishing the “most reprehensible crimes that often involve grotesque and lethal violence against innocent Americans.”
It directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to work with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, to “fully enforce” capital punishment in Washington and to pursue the death penalty in “all appropriate cases where, following full examination of the evidence and other relevant information, the applicable factors justify a sentence of death.”…