Attorney General Merrick Garland has ordered a halt to all federal executions and directed the Department of Justice to review federal policy on the death penalty, saying that the death penalty is unjustly applied to Black people and other minorities and to poor people, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The announcement is a direct reversal of Trump Administration policy, which restarted federal executions after a two decade ban. Trump pushed a rush of federal executions, with fourteen executions in the last seven months of Trump’s term, including three in his final week in office.