Another accounting of the Biden DOJ’s capital approach as it approaches a capital decision

The Washington Post has this lengthy new article on the capital punishment work of the Biden Administration’s Justice Department.  the full headline highlights the themes: “Garland’s death-penalty record will soon include Buffalo killer decision; President Biden’s attorney general has stopped dozens of death-penalty cases he inherited, but continued two involving mass, hate-fueled killings.”  Here are a few excerpts:

The Justice Department is nearing a decision over whether to pursue the death penalty for the White gunman who slaughtered 10 Black people at a Buffalo grocery store last year, a racist attack that could lead to the first new capital prosecution authorized by Attorney General Merrick Garland….

Payton Gendron, 20, faces charges on hate crimes and weapons violations for the May 2022 massacre. He already is serving a sentence of life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to New York state murder charges. Defense attorneys said he would plead guilty to the federal counts if prosecutors forego the death penalty.

Garland’s decision is freighted with political significance over whether he believes capital punishment is a just outcome for perpetrators of the nation’s deadliest mass killings. The attorney general has echoed concerns about the death penalty from civil rights groups and Democrats, including President Biden, who say it disproportionately targets minorities and the poor. But nearly three years into his tenure, Garland has sent conflicting signals about his stance.

Prosecutors this year took two death penalty cases Garland inherited to trial, while the attorney general has withdrawn the department’s intent to seek capital punishment in 32 others that also were filed before he took office. In 2021, he issued a moratorium on actually carrying out federal executions, which remains in place. But the Justice Department continues to aggressively fight appeals from the 40 inmates who are on federal death row.

Outside observers say Garland’s decision in the Gendron case could further clarify whether the Biden administration is closing in on defining a new “worst of the worst” standard, in which the death penalty is reserved for mass killers in an age of increasing acts of domestic terrorism. The two cases that went to trial this year, like the Buffalo case, both involved such crimes.