Trump’s effort to impose death penalty for selling drugs faces legal hurdles

While campaigning for president in 2024, Donald Trump promised to impose the death penalty for people convicted of selling drugs.

As president in his second term, Trump issued an executive order directing the attorney general to resume federal executions and "pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use." Attorney General Pam Bondi lifted the Biden administration's moratorium on federal capital punishment. 

Reinstating a 2018 policy, Bondi directed federal prosecutors to use drug trafficking statutes to pursue the death penalty when applicable.

But the executive order doesn't change legal precedent prohibiting the death penalty for crimes that did not result in death.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 in Kennedy v. Louisiana that imposing the death penalty for nonhomicide crimes violated the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibiting "cruel and unusual punishments."

The ruling did not address offenses against the state, which include "drug kingpin activity." U.S. Code permits the death penalty in some offenses involving large-scale drug trafficking, such as when a certain quantity of drugs is involved or when a large-scale drug trafficker attempts to kill. So it's possible that the death penalty can be imposed for those cases, but it's also possible courts would find it unconstitutional, said Alexandra Klein, Washington and Lee University School of Law associate professor.

"Death sentences in the U.S. are imposed almost exclusively for homicide crimes," she said. 

When contacted for comment, a Justice Department spokesperson referred PolitiFact to the administration's reversal of the federal executions moratorium, and said the agency continues to seek ways to implement Trump's executive order.

The Trump administration outlined a policy to pursue the death penalty for people convicted of selling drugs, but it doesn't alter legal precedent prohibiting the death penalty for nonhomicide crimes.

We rate this promise Stalled.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.