Trump says U.S. will seek the death penalty for murders committed in D.C.

Inside the numbers connected Trump's D.C. takeover

Inside the numbers connected Trump's D.C. transgression crackdown 03:25

Washington — President Trump said Tuesday the national authorities would question the decease punishment for murders committed successful Washington, D.C.

It's the latest determination successful a national crackdown connected crime, with Washington arsenic a trial case, arsenic the president ramps up national instrumentality enforcement efforts successful Washington and seeks to found forces successful each state's National Guard to beryllium acceptable connected abbreviated announcement to code civilian unrest. The president connected Monday signed a crime-focused executive order that included a directive to the defence caput to signifier these plans.

"Anybody murders thing successful the capital, superior punishment," Mr. Trump said during a Cabinet gathering Tuesday. "Capital, superior punishment. If idiosyncratic kills idiosyncratic successful the capital, Washington, D.C., we're going to beryllium seeking the decease penalty. And that's a precise beardown preventative." 

The District of Columbia hasn't executed anyone since 1957, aft Robert Carter was convicted of fatally shooting an off-duty constabulary officer. Decades ago, D.C. had mandatory decease sentences for first-degree murders, a argumentation the Supreme Court voided successful the 1972 case Furman v. Georgia when it recovered that the decease punishment was being applied successful an unconstitutionally arbitrary manner. Four years later, the precocious tribunal allowed superior punishment to beryllium reinstated with clearer sentencing guidelines. The D.C. City Council, however, abolished the decease punishment successful 1981. 

Washington went 12 days without a execution during the national government's transgression crackdown, a streak breached aboriginal Tuesday with the sidesplitting of a 31-year-old antheral successful Southeast D.C., according to the Metropolitan Police Department. 

On his archetypal time successful office, the president signed an executive order directing the lawyer wide to question the decease punishment successful cases involving the execution of a instrumentality enforcement serviceman oregon "a superior transgression committed by an alien illegally contiguous successful this country."