President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates on Monday, ending his first term in the White House with a series of executions and preempting an expected spate of killings by President-elect Donald Trump, who has called for expanding the death penalty. did.
Biden’s decision leaves all but three seats vacant on federal death row: Dylann Roof, Robert Bowers, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The 37 people whose sentences were commuted will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. One of those whose sentences were commuted is Billy Jerome Allen, who was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit at age 19 and has spent more than half his life on federal death row.
“These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has placed on federal executions, except in cases of mass murder motivated by terrorism or hatred,” Biden said.
The president added that he is “more convinced than ever” that the United States must “cease the use” of the death penalty at the federal level.
“I cannot in good conscience allow a new administration to resume executions that I have stopped,” Biden said.
Chris Geidner, publisher of Law Dork, said Monday that the commutation is “a stark contrast to the man who for decades as a senator supported a major expansion of the federal criminal justice system. “This shows that the latter person is a different person.”
“This is a record that drew much skepticism from Biden when he pledged as a 2020 presidential candidate to abolish the federal death penalty,” Geidner added.
The president’s use of the pardon power comes near the end of his White House term after months of pressure from principled opponents of the death penalty, including progressive lawmakers, human rights groups, religious leaders and former federal judges. This was done at the end of the campaign.
Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, called Biden’s action Monday “an historic and courageous step to address the failure of the death penalty in the United States, and moves us much closer to outlawing the barbaric practice again.” ” he praised.
“By commuting the sentences of 37 death row inmates, President Biden has taken the most important step by any president in our nation’s history to address the immoral and unconstitutional harm of the death penalty,” Romero said. “President Biden’s actions also remove 37 people from harm, as President-elect Trump has a proven penchant and track record of carrying out swift executions. In its last six months, it executed 13 people, more than any other regime.” 120 years later. ”
Romero added, “The ACLU is proud to join countless advocates and civil rights and human rights organizations in thanking President Biden for his leadership and commitment to the highest principles of justice and humanity.” he added.
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) said Monday that Biden’s actions “could mark a turning point in the history of the death penalty in the United States.”
“Thirty years ago, then-Senator Joe Biden championed the death penalty and took personal credit for dramatically expanding the number of crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed,” the group said in a statement. ” he said. “However, over the past 30 years, alarming errors surrounding the application of the death penalty have been exposed. Numerous wrongful convictions of innocent people, dramatic evidence of racial bias, and sometimes torture-like Execution came to define the death penalty.”
“There are currently 200 people sentenced to death in the United States who have been exonerated and released, some of whom faced execution for decades before being acquitted,” EJI added. . “For every eight people executed over the past 50 years, one innocent person has been identified and released. This is a shocking rate of fatality and public safety, public health… or would probably be unacceptable in other areas of government oversight.”
Paul O’Brien, Amnesty International’s US executive director, called on Biden to fully exonerate all federal death row inmates before he leaves office.
“While this is a huge victory for human rights and for the 37 men who received commuted death sentences, the death penalty is never the answer,” O’Brien said. “Nearly three-quarters of the world’s countries have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice…The time has come to end this cruel practice everywhere in the United States and beyond.”
This article has been updated to include a statement from Amnesty International USA.
