Biden commutes death sentence of 37 federal inmates
US President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the death sentences of 37 out of the 40 inmates on federal death row.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” he said.
Citing his experiences as a public defender and in various political roles, including as Vice President and President, Biden added, “I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
These commutations come less than a month before President-elect Donald Trump, who supports the death penalty, takes office for a second term.
The commutations apply only to the 37 inmates facing federal death penalties and not to those on death row in states. There are a total of 2,250 prisoners on death row across the US, including state cases, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing data and analysis on capital punishment.
The three inmates left on death row were those charged with terrorism and hate-driven mass killings: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, involved in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people; Dylann Roof, who killed nine worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2018.
Biden, a Catholic, has been opposed to the death penalty, and his administration imposed a moratorium on federal executions. The White House stated that Biden’s actions would prevent the next administration from carrying out executions that would not be handed down under current policies.
Pope Francis has joined a growing number of individuals and organizations who had appealed to the US president to commute the death penalties. On December 8, the Pontiff said, “Let’s pray that their sentence would be commuted or changed.”
