President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a presidential memorandum to bring back the death penalty in the nation's capital.
Trump issued the memorandum from the Oval Office on Thursday.
The move directs Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro to fully enforce federal capital punishment laws in the nation's capital, ensuring prosecutors seek the death penalty in "appropriate cases" that warrant its use.
"You kill somebody, or if you kill a police officer, law enforcement officer—death penalty," Trump told reporters.
NTD reached out to Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office seeking a response to Trump’s proclamation, but did not receive a response by publication.
Capital punishment was banned in 1981 and has since been prohibited for crimes in the nation’s capital under District law. However, federal prosecutors can bring federal capital charges in some cases, allowing them to pursue the death penalty in Washington.
Thursday’s proclamation represents the latest action by the president to tackle crime in Washington.
Last month, Trump issued an emergency order that federalized the city’s police department and launched a surge of law enforcement. The move, according to officials, led to a decrease in crime in the nation's capital.
Earlier this month, Bowser and other district officials outlined the city’s success in reducing crime and acknowledged that Trump’s intervention helped.
Compared to 2023, burglaries are down 34 percent, car theft down 37 percent, homicides down 44 percent, and robberies down 60 percent, the mayor told a House panel during a Sept. 18 testimony in Congress. Overall, violent crime is down 53 percent.
While signing the memorandum on Thursday, the president reiterated the success in tackling crime.
“This is a very safe city right now, Trump told reporters.. “We don’t mess around.”
Trump suggested that the death penalty serves as a powerful deterrent to violent crime.
The White House said that by enforcing the death penalty law against Washington’s worst offenders, the president is ensuring that violent criminals face the toughest consequences under the law.
Following the signing of Trump’s proclamation, Bondi said this is only the beginning of efforts to crack down on crime nationwide.
The attorney general also noted that inmates whose sentences were commuted by former President Joe Biden have just been transferred to a notorious "supermax" prison, where Bondi said they will be “treated like they’re on death row.”
Additionally, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted four bills that would overhaul the criminal justice system in the nation’s capital and restructure how juvenile cases are handled.
Democrats vowed that they would fight against those bills. D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson told a House panel earlier this month that Washington was “a city under siege.”