CONCORD, N.H. AP - President Donald Trump's administration is faltering in its aggressive pursuit of the death penalty as it revisits cases in which predecessors explicitly decided against seeking capital punishment.
Since taking office in February, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has authorized prosecutors to seek the death penalty against 19 people, including nine defendants in cases in which President Joe Biden's administration had sought lesser sentences. But judges have blocked those reversal attempts for all but two defendants, most recently on Monday in a pair of cases in the U.S. Virgin Islands, showing the limits of the Trump administration's power to undo decisions in cases already well underway.
In pursuing capital punishment, the Justice Department is seeking to follow through on a Trump campaign promise to resume federal executions after they were halted by Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland. The Republican president's Justice Department has accused the previous Democratic administration of supplanting "the will of the people with their own personal beliefs" in failing to seek death sentences in many cases involving horrific crimes.