May 7 (UPI) — The U.S. government on Wednesday announced it will seek the death penalty for an Oklahoma inmate charged with killing one cellmate and attempting to kill another.
The rare move comes as the Trump administration has sought to ramp up federal executions.
Jasper Reed, 27, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and assault resulting in serious bodily injury by a federal grand jury on Tuesday.
According to prosecutors, Reed killed a cellmate at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City on May 8, 2024.
A statement from that time by the U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Prisons identifies the victim as 52-year-old Rene Perez, who was serving a 21-month sentence for a supervised release violation.
The department said he was found unresponsive at around 10:30 p.m.
Federal prosecutors state that the autopsy showed Perez’s death was ruled a homicide caused by manual strangulation. He suffered fractured thyroid and thyroid bones, as well as severe hemorrhaging to the chest.
The attempted murder charge stems from an April 27, 2024, attack at the same facility.
This time, a correctional officer reportedly found Reed allegedly strangling his cellmate.
According to federal prosecutors, the officer administered pepper spray, but to no effect, and several officers were required to restrain Reed.
His alleged, unidentified victim was transported to a local hospital, where he was diagnosed with several fractures to his nasal bone, orbital bone, maxillary sinus anterior wall, maxillary sinus lateral wall and hyoid bone, the prosecutors said, adding that Reed suffered no injuries in the incident.
Reed entered the federal system on Dec. 27, 2023, after being sentenced to 51 months in prison on firearms-related charges.
The Justice Department said in a statement Wednesday that Attorney General Pam Bondi has authorized U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma Robert Troester to pursue capital punishment in the case and has filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty against Reed.
Federal executions are exceedingly rare, with only 50 carried out since 1927, including 16 since the reinstatement of the federal death penalty in 1988, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Of those 16, ll but three were conducted during the final six months of the first Trump administration.
The most recent federal execution: Dustin Higgs on Jan. 16, 2021, in Terre Haute, Ind., four days before Trump left office.
Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a moratorium on federal executions on July 1, 2021.
On the first day of his second term in the White House, the New York real estate mogul signed an executive order instructing the Justice Department and Bondi to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use,” including “a capital crime committed by an illegal alien present in this country.”
The Justice Department’s announcement comes a day after Secretary Kristi Noem of the Department of Homeland Security said she will seek the death penalty for two Mexican nationals accused of human smuggling resulting in the deaths of at least three migrants.
There are currently three federal death row inmates — Robert Bowers, Dylann Roof and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. President Joe Biden, on his final days in office, commuted the death sentences of the 37 other death row inmates to life in prison.
