AG Merrick Garland defies Biden's vow to end capital punishment trends now
Attorney General Merrick Garland has ruled that a death penalty case can move forward to trial — in a move that directly defies President Joe Biden's vow to end capital punishment.
Garland denied requests from Sayfullo Saipov's lawyers to take the death penalty off the table in his upcoming federal trial for an alleged attack on bicyclists and pedestrians in New York City on Halloween night in 2017.
Saipov's lawyers had been hoping that Garland would be lenient, given the fact that Biden campaigned against the death penalty, and Garland ordered a halt on all federal executions in 2021, according to the New York Times.
But Saipov, an Uzbekistan native, is now scheduled to become the first suspect to face the death penalty under the Biden administration when his trial begins Monday.
If a 12-member jury finds him guilty of the 2017 attack — in which eight people were killed and more than a dozen were injured — it will reconvene to decide whether to sentence Saipov to life in prison or have him executed for his crimes.
Sayfullo Saipov is set to be the first person to face the death penalty under the Biden administration when his trial begins Monday
Attorney General Merrick Garland denied his attorneys' requests to take the death penalty off the table — in a move that directly defies President Joe Biden's vow to end capital punishment
Saipov stands accused of plowing a rental truck down Manhattan's West Side bicycle path on October 31, 2017.
Federal prosecutors have argued in court documents that Saipov deserves the death penalty because the attack was planned and premeditated, and he has shown a lack of remorse for his alleged actions.
They have said the attack was intended to 'further the ideological goals' of the Islamic State, and argued that Saipov targeted the bike path on Halloween 'to maximize the devastation to civilians.'
A jury selection in the case is expected to last nearly three months, and under federal law, the jury must come to a unanimous decision to impose the death penalty.
Prosecutors expect the trial to last until March, during which time jurors will likely be presented with graphic evidence and testimony about the attack — in which he said he was inspired by ISIS videos he watched on his phone.
The assault only ended after he drove his truck into a school bus and waved a pellet and paintball guns while shouting 'Allahu akbar,' authorities said at the time.
Saipov was ultimately arrested after a cop shot him in the abdomen.
It was the deadliest attack in New York City since September 11, 2001, killing six tourists, a 24-year-old computer scientist from Manhattan and a 32-year-old financial worker from New Jersey.
Soon after he was charged, then-President Donald Trump tweeted that he 'SHOULD GET [THE] DEATH PENALTY,' and his attorney general directed prosecutors to seek execution if he was convicted.
By January 2018, one of Saipov's lawyers wrote in court filings that Saipov would plead guilty and accept a life in prison sentence if prosecutors dropped the death penalty, but the proposal was not accepted under the Trump administration.
Once Biden came into office, his lawyers tried again, making it clear that the offer still stood.
But on September 16, 2022, the Times reports, prosecutors wrote to Judge Vernon S. Broderick 'the attorney general has decided to continue to seek the death penalty.'
Saipov stands accused of plowing his rental truck into a bicycle path in Manhattan on October 31, 2017, killing eight people and injuring dozens more
Authorities said at the time the carnage only stopped when Saipov drove his truck into a school bus and waved a pellet and paintball guns while shouting 'Allahu akbar.' He was then shot in the abdomen by a cop and taken into custody
The decision seemed like a
