Will a Biden presidency end the death penalty?

Despite a shift by the American public against the death penalty, the U.S. government under President Donald Trump has carried out the most federal executions ever in a single year.

Three more executions were scheduled before Christmas. President-elect Joe Biden, however, made eliminating the death penalty part of his criminal justice reform platform, marking a reversal from his past support for capital punishment.

How will a Biden presidency affect the death penalty, and what are the issues about it that continue to cause debate and controversy?

“Executions are a form of torture that violate the Eight Amendment, which prohibits the federal government from imposing cruel and unusual punishment,” says David Dozier (www.DavidDozierBooks.com), a professor emeritus in the School of Journalism & Media Studies at San Diego State University and author of “The California Killing Field,” a novel about the death penalty.

“The death penalty is a barbaric and sadistic violation of human rights that should be eliminated in the U.S. and around the world. The U.S. has a disgusting record for a nation that sees itself as a beacon for human rights. But the momentum of states abolishing the death penalty, and the growing bipartisan consensus against it, make Biden’s goal of ending capital punishment a stronger possibility.”

A 2019 Gallup poll on capital punishment showed that 60% of Americans favored life in prison while 36% preferred the death penalty when they were asked, "Which do you think is the better penalty for murder?” Public support for the death penalty has dipped near a 48-year low.

Dozier explains some key points about the death penalty heading into the Biden presidency:

Legislative possibilities. Biden supports ending the death penalty through legislation and incentivizing the remaining death penalty states to do likewise. There are conservative lawmakers on board with ending the death penalty, but Dozier says a 6-3 conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court means “it is unlikely the Court will reconsider the death penalty anytime soon.”

Reversing recent party history. “The Democratic Party leaders have been shameful cowards with regard to human rights in general and the death penalty in particular,” Dozier says. “The Clintons, Barack Obama, and Biden were pro-death penalty when it was still popular in the 1990s. Vice president-elect Kamala Harris, on the other hand, refused to seek the death penalty for an accused cop killer when she was the district attorney of San Francisco.”

High costs of the death penalty process. A study in California revealed that the cost of capital punishment in the state has been over $4 billion since it was reinstated in 1978, or $308 million for each of the 13 executions since then.

Other financial facts about the death penalty show capital cases in some states costing far more than non-capital cases and being much more expensive than life imprisonment.

”The complexity of seeking the death penalty and carrying out the execution is a long and expensive process,” Dozier says. “Many capital cases are appealed. Incarceration on death row can span 10, 15, or 20 or more years. Capital punishment costs are an economic burden on government budgets. It's more cost-effective to commute death penalties to life imprisonment sentences without parole.”

Demographics of death row. “The death penalty is often a poor man's punishment, and it is systemically racist,” Dozier says. “Underpaid public defenders often defend the poor. District attorneys are more likely to go after defendants with few resources to fight their prosecution.”

Black Americans make up 13% of the population but 34% of persons executed since 1976.

“The American public is moving away from the death penalty,” Dozier says, “and it’s time for a new administration to do away with it.”