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While he was in office, former President Donald Trump rarely spoke publicly about capital punishment but his administration put 13 people to death in seven months, an unprecedented shift after 17 years without any federal executions. The spate of executions was only the most visible of the steps Trump’s Department of Justice took to preserve and expand the death penalty not just in the federal system but also in the states. Some of those changes would be easy for Biden to walk back, but neither the White House nor the DOJ responded to repeated requests for comment on the administration’s plans. The White House has also given no hint as to whether Biden might spare the lives and commute the sentences of the roughly 50 prisoners on federal death row to life in prison, as civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers have been pushing. But recent DOJ filings in a little-known court case involving the state of Arizona suggest there may be other changes afoot