Trump Signs Memo Ordering the Enforcement of the Death Penalty in D.C.

The president Thursday directed Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro to use federal law to pursue capital punishment cases in the city.

September 25, 2025 at 11:22 p.m. EDT

Summary

President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

By Michael Laris and Jenny Gathright, Washington Post

President Donald Trump instructed top prosecutors in a memo on Thursday to pursue the death penalty “to the maximum degree practicable” in D.C., marking his latest move to exert control over law enforcement in the city.

The memo, addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Attorney to D.C. Jeanine Pirro, cites the crime emergency Trump declared in the city in August and says the “implementation of the capital punishment laws will be part of this continuing work.”

“You kill somebody, or if you kill a police officer, law enforcement officer — death penalty,” Trump said at an Oval Office signing ceremony Thursday.

District officials repealed the city’s death penalty in 1981. Trump’s memo directs Bondi and Pirro to use federal law to pursue capital cases in the city.

Even before the memo, Pirro said officials would consider seeking the death penalty for Elias Rodriguez, the Chicago man charged with first-degree murder and hate crimes resulting in death in the shootings of two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum in May.

Trump asked Bondi to address the announcement at the White House on Thursday. She noted the national scope of the administration’s death penalty efforts.

“Yes, sir. Not only are we seeking it in Washington, D.C., but all over the country — again,” Bondi said. The attorney general, like Trump, has been highly critical of the Biden administration’s approach to capital punishment, including a moratorium on federal executions, which the current administration has lifted.

The issuance of a District-specific memo raised concerns among death penalty opponents and some legal experts who have advocated for robust local control of the city’s affairs.

Ryan Downer, legal director at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, said Trump was using “the false pretext of a ‘crime emergency’” to erode D.C.’s self-governance.

“DC’s democratically elected leaders abolished the death penalty more than 40 years ago, and voters have repeatedly rejected bringing it back,” he said. “For good reason: The death penalty doesn’t deter crime, is prone to error and is consistently applied in a discriminatory way.”

The White House said Trump is targeting heinous crimes.

“By enforcing the death penalty law against D.C.’s worst offenders, President Trump underscores his determination to protect our Nation’s capital for all Americans who visit and reside there and ensure violent criminals face the toughest consequences under law,” according to a White House fact sheet about the memo.

On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order seeking to increase the use of capital punishment nationwide, which he called an “essential tool” for punishment and deterrence.

In February, Bondi issued a memo encouraging Justice Department employees to pursue capital crimes in a variety of situations contemplated under federal law, including the murder of a law enforcement officer, drug trafficking, and certain murders during drive-by shootings or other firearm related offenses.

Trump’s memo Thursday cites two broad ways the death penalty could be pursued.

First, it says, Bondi and Pirro “shall fully enforce Federal law with respect to capital punishment in the District of Columbia by seeking the death penalty in all appropriate cases where, following full examination of the evidence and other relevant information, the applicable factors justify a sentence of death.”

Second, the memo says, the two officials “shall, to the maximum degree practicable, pursue Federal jurisdiction with respect to cases involving crimes committed in the District of Columbia for which the death penalty is available under Federal law.”

Such an effort to seek federal jurisdiction could mean that prosecutors might attempt to move cases to federal court that previously would have been tried in local court, experts said, noting that such a shift would prompt legal challenges.