Can the president ban the death penalty for federal crimes?

Question

Seeing as the President is the leader of the federal government does he have the right to abolish capital punishment in federal cases? Could this be done without an constitutional amendment?

Answer 1

No. The president generally cannot make laws without congressional authority. Capital punishment has been approved through the constitutional process of bicameralism and presentment, so the president has effectively no authority to change that law.

The president can, however, use his pardon power to effectively end capital punishment for anyone so sentenced during his term. If the president wishes to pardon everyone facing the death penalty, or merely commute their death sentences, he may do that. That has no effect on the next president's ability to seek or carry out the death penalty on people convicted in his term, though.

Answer 2

Seeing as the President is the leader of the federal government does he have the right to abolish capital punishment in federal cases?

Not exactly. The President has the power to instruct the US Government to not pursue capital punishment in cases that would otherwise allow that (Prosecutorial Discretion). But the President has no power over the judiciary that can sentence based on the convictions any of the legally allowed punishments. Similarly, the President has no legislative power, so they cannot change what is a legally allowed punishment.

The President can also use the pardon powers to change the capital punishment to something else (as some Presidents have done before), or to instruct the Federal government to delay executions (as some Presidents have done before) in which case the convict is still sentenced to death, but will remain on the death row until the instructions change (as they recently have).

Could this be done without an constitutional amendment?

Absolutely, such an amendment can forbid capital punishments. But it's not needed, as the Constitution doesn't require capital punishments, only allows them. A regular Congressional legislation is enough to abolish it.