Feds Want Death Penalty For Alleged Gang Member In State Where Its Banned

Federal prosecutors indicated Monday they will seek the death penalty for an alleged Detroit gang member accused of murder and drug dealing, despite Michigan not having a death penalty.

Capital punishment had been banned in Michigan state courts since 1847, but the death penalty can still be sought in federal cases. Michigan was the first state to ban the death penalty.

Prosecutors filed a rare “Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty” in Detroit Monday for 31-year-old Billy Arnold. Arnold is an alleged member of the Seven Mile Bloods gang. Federal prosecutors accuse the gang of trafficking opioids.

Arnold was charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act so that all of his charges are enhanced, because he was also allegedly in a criminal organization. Arnold faces charges including murder in aid of racketeering for the killing of two rival gang members, attempted murder in aid of racketeering, assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering and the crime of violence resulting in death.

Arnold who had prior convictions including attempted murder and weapons charges was indicted in March 2016. Arnold was wrapped up in a set of superseding RICO indictments leveled against 12 alleged members of the Seven Mile Bloods gang after a joint local, state and federal authorities investigation.

Death penalty punishments are rare in these types of cases — only one other person was sentenced to death in Michigan in the last 50 years — Marvin Gabrion. He was found guilty of killing a 19-year-old girl whose body was found on federal land. He sits on death row pending appeals.

The Department of Justice under Attorney General Jeff Sessions appears to be ramping up their use of capital punishment. A senior Justice Department Official told the Wall Street Journal that Sessions views the death penalty as a “valuable tool in the tool belt” and that the current administration will seek more death penalty cases than previous administations.

“The current Justice Department … has announced that they’re going to be much more aggressive and seek higher punishments, and that would include seeking the death penalty in the cases that they identify as appropriate,” former federal prosecutor Peter Henning told WWJ-TV, a Detroit CBS-affiliate. “If it’s going to be targeting certain offenses, for example, opioid distribution, then it is a big deal because it shows that the justice department is using its most potent weapon, at least as far as punishment is concerned, to go after people who are distributing opioids.”

Currently, there are 61 inmates on federal death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The most recent convicted murderers sentenced to death are Dylann Roof, who was convicted last year for murdering nine people in a hate crime shooting at a historic Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was sentenced to death in 2015 for convictions in connection to the Boston Marathon bombing.