Just a few months after he took office, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a moratorium to halt federal executions — a stark contrast after his predecessor carried out 13 in six months. Under Garland’s watch and a president who vowed to abolish the death penalty, the Justice Department took on no new death penalty cases. That changed Friday as federal prosecutors said they would seek capital punishment for a white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket. The decision doesn’t change the halt on federal executions, but Garland’s first approval of a new capital prosecution opens a new chapter in the long and complicated history of the death penalty in the U.S.
