WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced on Monday that he is commuting the death sentences of 37 inmates on the federal government’s death row in an attempt to halt President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to resume executions quickly upon taking office.
Biden commuted the death sentences for 37 of 40 men, lowering them to life sentences without the possibility of parole, according to the White House.
“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,” Biden said in a statement on Monday. “But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President, and now President, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”
“But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President, and now President, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” Biden added in his statement. “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
Three men who remain on death row include Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombers; Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people in the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018; and Dylann Roof, who killed nine people in a shooting at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina.
13 federal inmates were put to death during Trump’s first term and Biden said Monday that his decision came with Trump’s support for capital punishment amid fears he could move the executions sooner.
As a presidential candidate, Biden said in 2019 that “we must eliminate the death penalty.”
Meanwhile, Trump said on the campaign trail earlier this year that he would push for the Justice Department to seek the death penalty for drug dealers.
“We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts,” Trump said.
He has also called for the death penalty for “any migrant who kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.”
Earlier this month, Biden commuted the sentences for nearly 1,500 Americans, including pardons for 39 people convicted of non-violent crimes, marking the largest single-day act of clemency in U.S. history.
More pardons are coming before Biden leaves office on Jan. 20, with a source close to Biden suggesting he and his senior aides are discussing blanket pardons for those who could be targeted for prosecution by the incoming Trump administration.
