Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 19, 2023 / 10:40 am
Congressional Democrats introduced a bill to abolish the federal death penalty, calling the policy “state-sanctioned murder” and “deeply flawed.”
Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said in a press release that the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act of 2023 “would end the use of the death penalty by the federal government.”
“Specifically, the bill would prohibit the imposition of the death penalty as punishment for any violation of federal law and would require the re-sentencing of those previously sentenced to death row,” the release said.
The measure was first introduced by the pair in 2019 after the Trump administration announced the resumption of the federal death penalty. Trump’s administration carried out a total of 13 executions.