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On September 25, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the attorney general and the U.S. attorney general for D.C. to seek the death penalty in the nation’s capital whenever “appropriate.”

“The death penalty in Washington,” Trump said at the signing. “You kill somebody, or if you kill a police officer, law enforcement officer — death penalty.”

In 1981, the D.C. Council repealed the death penalty and in 1992 residents voted down a referendum to reinstate capital punishment, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC.)

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The order states that the attorney general and the United States attorney for the District of Columbia shall seek “the death penalty in all appropriate cases,” and “pursue Federal jurisdiction” for crimes committed in D.C. “for which the death penalty is available under Federal law.”

During the signing, Trump went on a rambling rant about crime in the nation’s capital. In August, despite record low rates of violent crime, the president declared a crime emergency in the city and flooded its streets with federal agents and National Guard troops.........

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