Execution Pause Is Incomplete Step Toward Biden Abolition Pledge

Attorney General Merrick Garland’s execution moratorium announced on Thursday marks a Trump-era reversal, but it doesn’t eliminate the death penalty as President Joe Biden promised during his 2020 campaign.

Death penalty opponents welcomed the news following the unprecedented string of 13 federal executions carried out late in the Trump administration, while emphasizing how far the U.S. government has to go to deliver on Biden’s abolition pledge.

It’s “a good start, but more will be needed to ensure that future administrations do not have the ability to resurrect this failed machinery of death,” said Miriam Krinsky, executive director of Fair ...