This week in the US, four executions are scheduled to take place over just three days. Let that sink in.

With Donald Trump beginning his second term as President, questions are mounting about what this means for the future of the death penalty in the country. During his first term, the federal government resumed executions after a 17-year hiatus, carrying out 13 executions in quick succession. To put that into perspective, more people were put to death in just six months than during the combined terms of the previous ten presidents.

After this, former President Joe Biden placed an informal hold on federal executions during his time in office. While he stopped short of abolishing capital punishment at the federal level, one of his final clemency actions saw him resentence 37 out of 40 people on death row to life imprisonment without parole.

Since returning to office, Trump has already signed an executive order to pursue the federal death penalty and ensure states have enough lethal injection supplies. He has also been advocating for an expansion of the crimes punishable by death.

Matt Wells, deputy director of Reprieve US, a human rights NGO, warns of what this could mean for capital punishment in America. Now that Trump is back in the White House, Wells told SCREENSHOT: “States are rushing to resume executions, recklessly disregarding the risk that they will cause extreme pain and suffering.”

So, what lies ahead for capital punishment under President Trump? We explore the legal, political, and social implications of his return to power.

Donald Trump’s first term as US President marked a significant shift in federal death penalty policy.

His administration executed more prisoners in six months than the federal government had in the previous 50 years combined. This aggressive stance was driven by then-Attorney General William Barr, who justified the move as a necessary measure to enforce justice.

Trump has long supported the death penalty, previously calling for its expansion to include drug traffickers and child predators. His past judicial appointments, particularly to the Supreme Court, have also influenced the broader legal landscape, with a conservative majority less inclined to overturn death sentences.

But Trump’s legacy on capital punishment extends beyond just federal executions. Under his administration, the Department of Justice also attempted to speed up the process, for example by eliminating regulatory barriers that previously delayed executions. These included changes to the lethal injection protocol and authorisation of alternative methods of execution, such as firing squads.

Within hours of taking office for the second time, Trump signed an executive order, Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety, promising that his attorney general, Pam Bondi, would be seeking the death penalty for “all crimes of a severity demanding its use.”

On top of the changes he has already made, Trump’s past remarks on capital punishment suggest any or all of the following could happen during his second term as President.

Currently, there are technically more than 40 federal laws that, if broken, can result in the death penalty, from genocide to murders committed during a drug-related shooting. Most of them, except espionage and treason, involve the death of a victim.

But Trump has vowed to make more people eligible to receive the death penalty. Crimes like human trafficking, for example, could become capital offences. Trump also says he wants those convicted of raping children and migrants who kill US citizens or police officers to receive the death penalty. He also wants anyone caught selling drugs to receive the death penalty.

When he announced his presidential candidacy back in 2022, he said: “We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts.”

Another question is, will Donald Trump’s administration embolden Republican-led states to ramp up execution rates?

Wells explained: “The message being sent from the top is clear: President Trump wants to see more people being executed, and with most federal death sentences commuted, in the short-term at least that means more executions at the state level.”

While Trump does not have control over state executions, some experts, according to the BBC, suggest that his pro-death penalty stance might trigger more executions at state level. As well as the US government and the military, 27 US states can still hand out the death penalty for certain crimes.

Linked to this is the massive issue of botched executions. Wells further told SCREENSHOT: “Executions were paused in several states following horrific scenes in the death chamber, notably in 2022, when one in three lethal injection executions went visibly wrong. As states rush to kill, ignoring red flags that their execution protocols are a recipe for torture, there is every danger we’ll witness more prisoners dying in agony.”

According to Reprieve’s 2024 review of every botched lethal injection in the modern era of the US death penalty, haste was found to be a factor in increased chances of an execution going wrong.

Wells said: “Speeding up the machinery of death may seem politically expedient in the age of Trump, but in practice, it leads to more slow and painful deaths on the gurney.”

Some conservative lawmakers have expressed frustration with lethal injection shortages, proposing alternatives like nitrogen gas and firing squads. As a result, the Trump administration might embrace such changes as part of a broader push to ensure executions proceed without legal or logistical obstacles.

Despite Donald Trump’s pro-death penalty stance, several factors could hinder a return to widespread federal executions.

Firstly, there are judicial challenges. Even with a conservative Supreme Court, legal barriers to new federal death penalty laws could arise.

There is also public opinion to consider. A Gallup poll conducted in October 2024 showed that a small majority of Americans support the death penalty for murder—53 per cent, which is up from 50 per cent in the previous year. But polls also show a slow decline in support for the death penalty among younger voters.

Then there’s the factor of states abolishing the death penalty, as Virginia, Colorado, and Illinois have done recently. Others could follow suit during Trump’s second term.

The practical implementation of the death penalty has also faced challenges with drug shortages and the issue of botched executions.

The US has faced international criticism for its use of the death penalty, particularly under Trump. Countries that have abolished capital punishment often pressure the US on human rights grounds.

A return to aggressive federal executions could therefore damage diplomatic relations, especially with European allies who oppose capital punishment.

But why exactly are so many people opposed to it?

Perhaps the most obvious reason why people oppose capital punishment is that justice systems can be flawed and make wrongful convictions.

Over 190 people have been exonerated from death row in the US since 1973, leading to bipartisan discussions about whether capital punishment can ever be fairly applied.

Human rights organisations around the world argue that Trump’s policies disproportionately affect marginalised groups, including racial minorities and individuals with intellectual disabilities.

The application of the death penalty has long been criticised for racial bias, with Black defendants more likely to receive a death sentence, particularly when the victim is white.

In the modern era, when executions are carried out exclusively for murder, 75 per cent of these cases involve the murder of a white person, even though over half of all homicide victims in the US are Black, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

There is growing evidence that racial bias continues to be rife in America’s criminal justice system, with the existence of implicit racial bias among law enforcement, witnesses and jurors, among others, which leads to the harsher punishment of minorities, even if this is not intended.

And what about the human rights implications of botched executions?

The lethal injection remains the dominant method of execution in the US and yet there is clear evidence that it goes wrong more frequently than any other method and that it can cause extreme pain.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, after examining all executions that took place in the US between 1890 and 2010, Austin Sarat, a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, found that 3.15 per cent of the 8,776 executions performed in that time went wrong.

When looking at execution by lethal injection alone, the rate rose to 7.12 per cent—75 out of the 1,054 executions by this method during the time range were considered botched. This method goes wrong more often than any other means.

The four executions due to take place this week, from Tuesday 18 to Thursday 20 March 2025, are in Louisiana, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Florida.

In 2022, Arizona carried out three executions by lethal injection, all of which were botched. In May 2022, Clarence Dixon grimaced in pain during lengthy attempts to set an IV line, which ended with officials cutting into his groin to access a vein. The executions in 2022 were the first in the state since 2014, when Joseph Wood repeatedly gasped for one hour and 40 minutes after lethal injection drugs were injected, before death was pronounced.

Florida is the only state that includes Etomidate in its execution protocol, a drug that has only been used a handful of times and resulted in the visibly botched execution of Eric Branch.

The state has a troubling history of botched lethal injection executions. In 2000, the execution of Bennie Demps was called off after state officials spent over half an hour cutting into his leg and groin, trying to establish IV lines.

In 2006, Florida’s execution team pushed IV catheters straight through Angel Diaz’s veins and into his tissue, resulting in large chemical burns and blistering across his arms. Because of the incorrect placement of the IVs, the drugs were not administered effectively, and a second dose of all three execution drugs had to be administered.

In 2018, Branch was executed using Etomidate, Rocuronium Bromide and Potassium Acetate. Witnesses reported that after the drugs had been administered, he screamed, thrashed and writhed on the gurney, and let out blood-curdling screams. experts have warned that its use causes “the maximal possible pain that affected tissues can produce,” along with “seizure-like” and “macabre writhing.”

These are just a few examples of an expansive issue that carries severe human rights implications.

While federal executions are a major concern, much of the death penalty debate plays out at the state level. Some Republican-led states, like Texas and Florida, continue to carry out executions, while Democratic-led states move towards abolition.

Governors hold significant power over the fate of death row inmates through clemency decisions. In 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom took steps to dismantle the state’s death row despite capital punishment remaining legal. Meanwhile, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis signed laws making it easier to impose the death penalty in certain cases.

It is worth remembering that, firstly, Trump cannot reverse Biden’s commutations, even if he wants to.

Plus, his efforts to expand the death penalty to crimes that don’t involve murder will likely face legal challenges. Any expansion of crimes eligible for the federal death penalty would need Congress to act and change the law.

In 2024 for example, two bills sponsored by Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican and Trump ally, sought to expand the use of capital punishment to include possession of child pornography and the trafficking, exploitation and abuse of children. Both of these failed to pass in the House of Representatives.

This said, under Trump, federal policies may embolden pro-death penalty states while increasing pressure on abolitionist states to justify their stance. The political divide on this issue is likely to deepen.

A second Trump presidency could ultimately lead to a renewed push for capital punishment, reversing any progress made under Biden. The long-term trajectory of the death penalty in the US will depend on political will, judicial rulings, and shifting public attitudes.

While Trump may only be in post for four years, his election could shape the future of the death penalty in the US for years to come.