U.S. President Donald Trump announced at a White House cabinet meeting on Saturday that his administration would seek the death penalty for all murders in Washington D.C. According to U.S. Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC), Trump stressed that the death penalty was a ¡°very strong deterrent¡± and said there was ¡°no other choice.¡±

CNBC said Trump had pushed to expand the scope of the death penalty since the beginning of his second term. On the day he took office, he signed an executive order requiring the attorney general to "pursue the death penalty for all crimes of such gravity as warrant it," and encouraged state attorneys general and district attorneys to develop policies related to the death penalty.

However, as most murders are being tried by the District Court of Washington and local laws do not authorize the death penalty, Trump¡¯s statement may face obstacles in enforcement. CNN that the majority of murders in the District of Washington were tried by the High Court of the District of Washington, but local laws do not allow the death penalty to be applied. The BBC said that the District of Washington has long been abolished. According to the non-profit death penalty information center, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1972 denied the death penalty system in the District of Washington, and the National Assembly formally abolished the death penalty in 1981, and the 1992 referendum also explicitly opposed the reinstatement of the death penalty.

However, the District Federal Attorney's Office has a special status and can handle local court and federal court cases at the same time, so it can theoretically file federal charges and seek the death penalty in some cases. "We will use whatever punishment the law allows," U.S. Attorney Jeanne Piro in Washington, D.C., said at a news conference. Piro announced this month that the Justice Department was considering seeking the death penalty in a case involving the shooting of two Israeli embassy employees.

At present, Trump has not detailed how he will promote the death penalty policy. Several lawmakers have told CNN that the likelihood of a real death penalty in Washington, D.C. is very low.

According to the Center for Information on the Death Penalty, there are currently 27 states in the United States that retain the death penalty and 23 have been abolished.The Gallup poll shows that the rate of support for the death penalty in the United States has rebounded in recent years, but has declined significantly compared to the peak of the 1990s.