Killing of National Guard Member Puts US Death Penalty in Focus

The killing of a National Guard member in Washington DC has revived attention on the use of capital punishment in the US. Attorney General Pam Bondi said authorities will seek the death penalty for the individual arrested in the Nov. 26 shooting of the service member and a colleague who was critically wounded. They were in the US capital as part of President Donald Trump’s deployment of military personnel to American cities.

The president and Bondi have made the death penalty a priority from the early days of the Trump administration.

Does Washington DC have the death penalty?

No. The death penalty is on the books in 27 US states, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, although in four of them — California, Oregon, Ohio and Pennsylvania — executions have been halted under orders issued by the governor. The District of Columbia, like the 23 remaining states, has abolished capital punishment.

However, the federal government can pursue the death penalty in any state in certain circumstances, including when alleged crimes involve specific charges of terrorism. Authorities are treating the Washington shooting as a terrorism case. Federal authorities have identified the suspect as an Afghan national who’d worked with US forces before arriving in the US in 2021.

The US military has a separate court system with distinct laws and punishments, including the death penalty. However, the military hasn’t carried out any executions since 1961.

What crimes qualify for the death penalty in the US?

The US Justice Department defines capital offenses as including “murder, treason, genocide, or the killing or kidnapping of a Congressman, the President, or a Supreme Court justice.”

In practice, those executed in recent years in the US have been found guilty of murder. In the past, rape was sometimes punished by execution in the US. But the Supreme Court ruled in 1977that its use in the case of the rape of an adult violated the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In a case involving the rape of a child, the court in 2008 ruled executionunconstitutional for any offense other than homicide or crimes against the state.

State lawmakers can pass legislation clarifying what circumstances must be met in order for prosecutors to pursue the death penalty. Those circumstances, known as “aggravating factors,” include raping the victim as well as murdering them and committing murder during a kidnapping or robbery. These factors vary by state.

How often is the death penalty used in the US?

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, as of Nov. 28, there had been 1,651 executions across the country since 1976, when the US Supreme Court issued a landmark decision affirming the legality of capital punishment. The court had suspended its use four years earlier, ruling that it had been applied arbitrarily.

Of those executions, 16 were carried out under federal jurisdiction.

A lethal injection facility is shown before being dismantled at San Quentin State Prison in 2019 in San Quentin, California.

Source: California Department of Corrections/Getty Images

The use of the death penalty in the US puts the country in a small minority among democracies. More than 70% of countries around the world have abolished capital punishment. Other democracies that retain it are Singapore, Japan and Taiwan. In 2024, the US ranked fifth in the world in the number of known executions, behind Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and North Korea. China is thought to rank first, but execution data from there is not available.

How is the death penalty carried out in the US?

Lethal injection is the most prevalent method used to administer the death penalty in the US. It’s authorized for use in every state that uses capital punishment, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Which specific drugs are used for the injection varies by state.

Nine states allow the use of electrocution, and the same number permit lethal gas. Five states allow the use of a firing squad.

How is the Trump administration making the death penalty a priority?

Under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, the Justice Department in 2021 announced a moratorium on federal executions. And as Biden was leaving office in December 2024, he commuted the sentences of 37 individuals on federal death row to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

When Trump returned to the presidency in January 2025, one of his first actions was to issue an executive order concerning the death penalty. It instructs the attorney general to resume the practice of seeking and implementing death sentences in federal cases, to encourage state officials to bring “capital charges for all capital crimes,” and to help states address the challenges they’ve faced acquiring the drugs used in lethal injections.

In a memo in February, Bondi directed the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy to “promptly address” requests from states seeking to take advantage of a clause in a 1996 law that, essentially, can cut in half the time it takes for federal court reviews of death penalty cases. The law was passed in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Madlin Mekelburg in Austin at mmekelburg@bloomberg.net;
Jimmy Jenkins in Washington at jjenkins199@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Lisa Beyer at lbeyer3@bloomberg.net

Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou

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