ADVERTISEMENT I am not alone in thinking this matter urgent. In December, more than three dozen members of Congress called on the soon-to-be president to add the federal death penalty to his day one agenda. Biden should take up their call to action. Doing so would be a fitting rejoinder to Donald Trump’s unseemly lame duck execution spree. It would also be a powerful signal of Biden’s intention to end racial discrimination in America’s criminal justice system. Federal capital prosecutions are — like those at the state level — tainted by racism. A Department of Justice study published in 2000 found significant racial disparities in the department’s own handling of capital charging decisions. It reported that from 1995 to 2000, minority defendants were involved in 80 percent of the cases federal prosecutors referred to the department for consideration as capital prosecutions. In 72 percent of the cases approved for prosecution, the defendants were persons of color.