President-elect Donald Trump has chilling plans to use his second term to expand the federal death penalty. This expansion continues the killing spree he initiated in the final six months of his first presidency when Trump oversaw more executions than any president in the past 120 years. His plans for a second term include sentencing more people to die, expanding the category of crimes punishable by death, and killing all 40 people currently on federal death row.

President Joe Biden can — and must — act now to finish the death penalty reform work his administration began in 2020. He must commute the sentences of all people on federal death row to stymie Trump’s plans and to redress the racial injustice inherent to capital punishment.

Tell President Biden to Commute the Row

The federal death penalty is plagued with systemic flaws at the expense of human life. Donald Trump has promised to expand it. We must act now....

Source: American Civil Liberties Union

The ACLU has long fought for an end to the death penalty. We know that its cruel practices are out of step with the fundamental values of our democratic system. Trump’s return to the White House, and his unprecedented, extreme, and inhumane stance on capital punishment, only threaten to make an already cruel system more dangerous.

Already, Trump has called to unconstitutionally expand the death penalty to include non-homicide crimes, such as drug-related offenses. He has also reportedly called for the death penalty as punishment for those who leak information against him in the press or undermine him politically. He has suggested bringing back firing squads, the guillotine, and hangings by noose – a symbol and tool of our country’s sordid legacy of lynching and racial terror.

Trump’s promise to expand the death penalty magnifies the systemic inequities that already plague our capital punishment system. The federal death penalty, like state capital punishment systems, is error prone, racially-biased, and a drain on public resources. More than half of those under federal death sentence in 2024 are people of color, some of whom were convicted by all-white juries. People with serious mental illnesses, intellectual disabilities, brain damage, and histories of trauma are also overrepresented on death rows across the country, including the federal row. Additionally, as long as the death penalty exists, we risk executing innocent people, as evidenced by the 200 people who have been sentenced to death and exonerated since 1973.

In 2020, Biden made history as the first president to openly oppose the death penalty. Under his leadership, the Department of Justice (DOJ) acknowledged the death penalty’s disparate impact on people of color as well as the staggering number of people who have been sentenced to death and, subsequently, exonerated over the past five decades. Though Biden stopped short of acting on his promise to secure an end to capital punishment, he can still save lives and help build a legacy rooted in racial justice by commuting all federal death sentences to life in prison.

Studies show that the death penalty does not keep our communities safer. In fact, research has consistently shown that the death penalty does not deter homicides and that in states that homicides are lower in states that do not have the death penalty.

Trump has consistently ignored these facts. Instead, during his last term, he went on a killing spree and rapidly executed 13 men in quick succession without regard for serious miscarriages of justice. Of the 13 people Trump executed in his last term, two were Black men sentenced as teenagers, one was a woman with mental illness who had survived a lifetime of horrific sexual abuse and torture, another was a man with intellectual disabilities, and there was also a 67-year-old man whose Alzheimer’s disease left him unaware of the reason he was sentenced to die. A majority of the 13 executed were people of color, including seven Black men and one Native American man.

These executions, particularly of people with mental illness and intellectual disability, demonstrate that no amount of procedure eliminates the fundamental flaws of the death penalty.

The ACLU is calling on President Biden to commute the sentences of all people on federal death row before he leaves office. Commuting federal death sentences will redress the legacy of racial bias inherent to capital punishment and make Trump’s brutal plans for another killing spree impossible. If Biden does this he’ll not only take away Trump’s power to oversee another execution, but he’ll also help set the U.S. on a different course. By setting an example of empathy and a willingness to root out injustice, he can pave the way for future administrations to build on his legacy and finally end capital punishment.

Our work is not confined to federal commutation efforts. The Eighth Amendment forbids cruel and usual punishment, including Trump’s proposals to expand the application of the death penalty to non-homicide crimes like drug trafficking and to use methods like hanging or the guillotine. The ACLUis ready on day one to challenge inhumane death penalty expansion efforts and any attempts to return to regressive killing methods.

At the state-level, the ACLU will build on our ongoing work against the death penalty. We’ll continue our litigation in states like Kansas and North Carolina under laws that are more protective than the U.S. Constitution — like state racial justice acts and constitutions — to invalidate the death penalty based on its racist administration, including in the selection of jury members.

“The death penalty is a morally-bankrupt and inescapably racist institution. President Biden came into office committing to abolishing the federal death penalty because of its fundamental flaws. Commuting the federal row is the way he can honor that commitment, and prevent irreversible miscarriages of justice.” — Yasmin Cader, ACLU deputy legal director and the director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality.”

President Biden can commute all federal death sentences before his time as president ends, saving lives, preventing an irreversible miscarriage of justice, and building a legacy rooted in racial justice and compassion. Urge him to do so today.

In the final weeks of the election, Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party focused their campaign efforts on abortion rights, particularly in key swing states. While those efforts did not secure Harris a win, in the 10 states where abortion rights were on the ballot, seven voted to safeguard abortion rights in their state constitutions.

Among those seven states, in Arizona, Missouri, Nevada and Montana — where President-elect Donald Trump won — abortion ballot measures definitively passed. In many cases, the ballot measures were more popular than Trump. While these red state wins indicate just how popular abortion rights are among even conservative-leaning voters, wins in blue and purple states, including Maryland, Colorado and New York, show that reproductive freedom continues to be an issue that defies party lines.

Kohar/ACLU

Thirteen states currently have total abortion bans in effect, but Missouri was the first state to enforce its ban, taking action mere minutes after the fall of Roe v. Wade. Missourians, who voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and in 2024, this year passed Amendment 3 to end the state's total abortion ban, which was one of the strictest in the country. Amendment 3 ensures that decisions about Missourians’ reproductive health care — including abortion, birth control, and miscarriage care — can be made by patients with their health care providers, not politicians.

The ACLU, ACLU of Missouri and its partners led this ballot measure and, the day after it passed, we again joined with partners to file a lawsuit on behalf of Planned Parenthood to implement the amendment and urgently restore access to care in the state. Krysten Vaughn, the community engagement associate at the ACLU of Missouri, saw firsthand just how popular abortion rights are in her red state. While canvassing for Amendment 3, she spoke to a mother who was thrilled that she and her husband could vote for Amendment 3 to protect their family.

She also knocked on the door of an elderly man who said his wife had waited an hour in line to vote yes on the amendment. “He was very enthusiastic and even said ‘bless you all for the work you’ve been doing,’” Vaughn said.

Like Missouri, Montana voters have supported Trump in the past three elections. Montana’s Supreme Court, however, has a strong precedent protecting abortion rights. As we saw with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe, court opinions can change if the court’s makeup changes. That’s why, this election cycle, voters chose to safeguard an explicit right to abortion in their constitution and passed Constitutional Initiative 128 by more than 15 points. This initiative permanently secures the right to make and carry out decisions about pregnancy and abortion in the state constitution. The ACLU of Montana was a driving force behind the ballot measure, uplifting the overwhelming support for abortion rights in deep Trump country.

Khadija Davis, a political strategist with the ACLU of Montana, spoke to Montanans about why this ballot measure was personal. Davis saw people drive hundreds of miles, endure tough weather, spend long hours volunteering, and make phone calls to mobilize their communities to vote for their reproductive rights. While phone banking, Davis met women who shared their experiences from decades ago, before Roe, who said they refused to go back – they were voting for a better future for their children.

“You could feel the passion and compassion people had for one another, and this campaign,” Davis said. “When I was at the rally in Helena, people were crying, hugging, and sharing joy. They made signs, dressed in matching shirts, and came out to build community around hope.

The ACLU and the ACLU of Montana not only supported the ballot measure, we also invested in Montana’s Supreme Court race to educate voters on candidate positions on civil liberties and rights. As a result, the pro-civil liberty majority was preserved on the state Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court will now determine how the ballot measure is implemented and the ACLU will work to hold it accountable for enforcing this vital protection.

In the Southwest, Arizona has also aggressively restricted abortion access for decades, imposing a 15-week ban on abortion after Roe was overturned and almost reinstating an 1864 total abortion ban. Given the opportunity to change this, a majority of voters — almost 62 percent — voted yes on Proposition 139, which enshrined the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. With more than half the vote, the ballot measure passed with a wider margin than Trump’s win.

Harrison Redmond, a community organizer at the ACLU or Arizona, was proud to have the opportunity to work on this ballot measure so that all Arizonans, including his younger sister, can live in a state that respects their civil rights and liberties. Redmond spoke with countless volunteers and supporters over the last year who wanted the same thing as him: equal rights for the people in their lives who can become pregnant.

“Arizonans made it clear that they don’t want the government interfering with important, personal health care decisions about abortion. Passing Prop. 139 is a huge step that will ensure people in our community get the care they need,” Redmond said.

In the East, while the abortion ballot measure didn’t win in Florida, it came close with 57 percent of voters supporting Amendment 4, which would have prohibited laws restricting abortion before fetal viability or when necessary to protect a pregnant person’s health. Unfortunately, the state’s undemocratic 60 percent threshold for passing a ballot initiative kept this vital right from being restored. That barrier, combined with deceptive tactics from Gov. Ron DeSantis, including a state-run, taxpayer-funded campaign to deceive voters as well as threats to petition signers and TV stations, proved too much to overcome.

Trump lost some blue states, like Massachusetts, by much smaller margins than he did in 2016 or 2020, indicating a shift in voter preferences in so-called Democratic strongholds. Despite these shifts, two blue states, New York and Maryland, voted to enshrine abortion rights into state law.

In New York, the Equal Rights Amendment, or Prop 1, passed with 62 percent of the vote. The amendment protects against unequal treatment based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.

In Maryland, 75 percent of voters said yes to Question 1, which confirms an individual’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom. While both Maryland and New York already had abortion rights’ protections in state statute, Prop 1 and Question 1 add another layer of more durable protections.

The ACLU is building a firewall for freedom to help state and local governments protect our rights always, especially in the face of federal abuses. Our reproductive freedom firewall work includes continuing to work with local partners on abortion rights ballot measures since the fall of Roe v. Wade. But we know passing these ballot initiatives are just the first step.

In 2022, the ACLU was a driving force behind the successful abortion rights measure in Michigan. As a next step, just as we have in Montana, we wanted to make sure that the will of the people was effectively carried out through judicial interpretation of the measure, which often falls to the highest court in the state. To bolster that abortion rights victory, in 2024, the ACLU Voter Education Fund spent $2 million on voter education around Michigan’s Supreme Court candidates to help educate voters on the role of the court on this issue.

While we are very encouraged by the successes we’ve seen, passing ballot measures to ensure reproductive rights is not a holistic solution. Only half of the states even allow citizen-initiated ballot measures. And, across the country, one in three women of reproductive age currently live in states where abortion is banned. We need a nationwide solution to this public health crisis, including federal-level protections for abortion and reproductive health care.

The voters have spoken loud and clear. Across the country, Americans do not want to see abortion banned. At the ACLU we’re ready to fight to protect the will of the people. Already, we’ve vowed to block any attempts by the upcoming Trump administration to weaponize the Comstock Act to effectively ban abortion nationwide or to take medication abortion off the market. And we won’t stop there. Any attempt to restrict our reproductive freedom will be met with the full force of the ACLU.

Today, as the nation prepares for the devastating onslaught of civil liberties abuses identified in our most recent analysis of Donald Trump’s policy proposals and rhetoric, the ACLU, too, is prepared.

Starting on day one, we’re ready to fight for our civil liberties and civil rights in the courts, in Congress, and in our communities. We did it during his first term – filing 434 legal actions against Trump while he was in office – and we’ll do it again.

We’ve done the work and, today, our track record shows that we know how to fight his attempts to restrict our civil liberties and civil rights. Here’s just a few highlights from our 400 plus legal actions to make that point: