Via Politico:
The state execution of drug smugglers that President Donald Trump has pushed for as part of his plan to combat the opioid crisis is already legal under a 1994 law passed at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic.
But in 24 years, federal prosecutors have never once used it. They hardly need to, considering the draconian penalties already available for punishing convicted drug smugglers.
Signed by President Bill Clinton, the 1994 death penalty statute was part of a clampdown on drug dealers in response to the crack epidemic, linked to a surge of crime and violence in American cities in the 1980s and 1990s. But it was a bridge too far even for zealous prosecutors because many believed it would be found to violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, said Ojmarrh Mitchell, a professor of statistics and criminology at the University of South Florida.
“In the absence of a direct link to a death, the constitutionality of death penalty prosecution is shaky at best,” said Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University.
The 1994 legislative package authorizes capital punishment against a defendant who directs a continuing criminal enterprise involving either large quantities of drugs or generating $20 million a year from the enterprise. It also includes 20-year mandatory minimum sentences for drug sales that result in overdose deaths. It has been used to execute drug kingpins for murders committed in the course of their business.