Washington: President Joe Biden announced Monday that he would commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, commuting their sentences to life in prison, just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, a spokesman for expanding the death penalty, took office.
The move spares the lives of people convicted of murder, including the killing of police and military officers, people on federal land and those involved in deadly bank robberies or drug deals, as well as the killing of guards or detainees at federal facilities.
That means only three federal inmates are still facing the death penalty. They are Dylann Roof, who in 2015 racially murdered nine black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers, who shot and killed 11 people in Pittsburgh’s Trigo of Life. , the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history.
“I have dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system,” Biden said in a statement.
Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole. These commutations are consistent with my administration’s moratorium on the federal death penalty for cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.
In 2021, the Biden administration announced a moratorium on federal capital punishment to study the protocols used, suspending executions during Biden’s tenure. But Biden has actually promised to move forward on the issue in the past, vowing to end the federal death penalty without warning for terrorism and hate-motivated, mass murders.
While running for president in 2020, Biden’s campaign website said he would work to pass legislation to abolish the death penalty at the federal level, and encourage states to follow the federal government’s example.
Similar language did not appear on Biden’s re-election website before he dropped out of the presidential race in July.
Make no mistake: I condemn these killers, grieve for the victims of their heinous acts, and grieve for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss, Biden’s statement said. But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman, vice chairman and now chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I am more convinced than ever that the use of the death penalty at the federal level must be stopped.
In a political attack on Trump, he said, ‘In good conscience, I cannot stand back and allow the new administration to resume the executions that I stopped.
In fact, Trump, who took office on January 20, has repeatedly talked about expanding the death penalty. In a speech announcing his 2024 campaign, Trump called for the death penalty for those caught selling drugs for their crimes. He later promised the death penalty for drug and human traffickers and praised China’s harsh treatment of drug traffickers. During his first term as president, Trump even advocated the death penalty for drug dealers.
There were 13 federal executions during Trump’s first term, more than any president in modern history, and some may have contributed to the spread of the coronavirus at a federal death row facility in Indiana.
They were the first federal executions since 2003. The last three occurred after Election Day in November 2020, but Trump was the first federal prisoner executed by a lame-duck president since Grover Cleveland in January 1889.
Biden has faced recent pressure from advocacy groups that have urged him to act to make it more difficult for Trump to increase the use of the death penalty for federal prisoners. The president’s announcement also comes less than two weeks after he released nearly 1,500 people from prison and home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 39 others were convicted of non-violent crimes, the largest single-day act. Of mercy in modern history.
The announcement also follows a post-election pardon that sparked an uproar in Washington by saying Biden would no longer release his son Hunter on federal gun and tax charges. The pardon also raised questions about whether the White House would issue a preemptive pardon to administration officials and other aides who expressed concern that Trump’s second administration could be unfairly targeted.
Speculation that Biden might commute the federal death penalty intensified last week after the White House announced plans to visit Italy next month on his last trip abroad as president. Biden, a practicing Catholic, will meet with Pope Francis, who recently called for prayers for US death row inmates to have their sentences commuted.
Martin Luther King III, who publicly urged Biden to commute the death penalty, said in a statement released by the White House, “The president has done what no president before him has attempted to do: take meaningful and lasting action. The death penalty has racist roots, but it has to address its continuing injustice.” too
Retired Ohio police officer Donnie Oliverio, whose partner was killed by a man who turned to death, said, “The execution of the man who killed my police friend and best friend would not give me peace.”
The president has done what is here, Oliverio said in a statement released by the White House, and what is consistent with the beliefs that he and I share.