President Donald Trump on Thursday directed the Justice Department to seek the death penalty in eligible cases in Washington, DC, escalating his administration’s efforts to revive federal capital punishment. “You kill somebody, or if you kill a police officer, law enforcement officer — death penalty,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, calling the nation’s capital “a very interesting capital punishment, capital city.”
A presidential memorandum instructs Attorney General Pam Bondi and US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro “to fully implement the death penalty here in Washington, DC, where the evidence and facts of the case indicate that the death penalty should be used,” White House staff secretary Will Scharf said. Bondi, appearing alongside the president, added the directive would apply “not only in Washington, DC, but all over the country, again.”
Bondi also said DOJ is moving inmates previously taken off federal death row under the Biden administration into maximum-security conditions. “We’re moving them to Supermax facilities where they will be treated like they’re on death row for the rest of their lives,” she said.
Trump has argued capital punishment is a “very strong preventative” measure, while acknowledging that individual states will decide whether to employ it. The federal push, however, faces immediate practical and legal constraints in the District. DC law does not authorize the death penalty, and most homicide prosecutions run through DC Superior Court, which cannot impose capital sentences.
The unique structure of local justice in the District could still give federal prosecutors an avenue. The US Attorney’s Office in Washington — unlike any other in the country — handles both local and federal prosecutions. By charging qualifying offenses in US District Court under federal capital statutes, prosecutors could seek death in certain cases, such as killings of federal officers, terrorism-related crimes, or murders linked to other federal predicates. Defense lawyers are expected to contest such efforts, arguing prosecutors are “federalizing” inherently local crimes to sidestep the District’s ban.
Even if cases are routed into federal court, securing a death sentence may prove difficult. Federal juries in Washington are drawn from the District, where public support for capital punishment is historically low; a death verdict requires unanimity. Capital cases also entail lengthy litigation over eligibility, mitigation, and constitutional issues, often stretching years.
The memo does not change DC’s criminal code. Instead, it signals a charging priority that could increase the number of federal death-eligible cases brought in the District, setting up courtroom battles over venue, statute fit, and whether jurors in the nation’s capital will impose the ultimate punishment
