President Joe Biden has granted commutations to most of the people currently facing a federal death penalty sentence, granting the largest number of single-day death row clemencies in U.S. history.
“This historic clemency action builds on the President’s record of criminal justice reform,” a fact sheet from the White House read, adding that Biden “has issued more commutations at this point in his presidency than any of his recent predecessors at the same point in their first terms.”
The commutations were granted to 37 of the 40 people sentenced to be executed in federal cases. Three individuals — white supremacist Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black people at a South Carolina church in 2015; Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people in an antisemitic attack at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018; and Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — were not granted reprieves by Biden.
The White House fact sheet stated that those receiving the commutations were to receive life sentences without parole instead — a “death-by-incarceration” sentence that prison abolitionists have noted has essentially the same effect as the death penalty.
“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 his announcement. “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.”
Although Biden has previously been supportive of capital punishment, he campaigned in 2020 on abolishing the death penalty at the federal level. However, Biden has not prioritized such legislation during his single term in office, and he will leave the White House having broken that pledge.
A slight majority of Americans (53 percent) support the death penalty, according to a Gallup poll published in October. That is the lowest rate of support for capital punishment observed in five decades, and data shows that a majority of younger generations are against the practice, with only 42 percent of Gen Z respondents and 47 percent of Millennials supporting the death penalty, versus 58 percent of Gen Xers and 61 percent of Baby Boomers supporting it. Those numbers suggest that a majority of Americans could be opposed to the death penalty within the coming years.
Biden’s action to grant commutations prevents president-elect Donald Trump from expediting a large number of death sentences when he comes into office next month. In his final year as president, Trump ended a multi-year moratorium on the federal death penalty, with his administration overseeing the execution of 13 people during that time.
Critics praised Biden for granting dozens of commutations, but noted that there were still people who could be executed under Trump, muddling Biden’s supposed position on the death penalty.
“As folks are discussing President Biden’s commutations of 37 federal death sentences, a lot of the coverage is overlooking that there are also four prisoners on the *military’s* death row,” Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck pointed out. “In other words, there are still *seven* federal death sentences intact — not three.”
Amnesty International USA executive director Paul O’Brien also said the commutations did not go far enough.
“It is near certain that Donald Trump will re-start the federal killing machine where he left off, and we remain concerned about the human rights of those who are still on federal and military death row,” O’Brien said in a press release statement.
“While this is a big win for human rights and the 37 men who have had their death sentences commuted, the death penalty is never the answer,” O’Brien added. “It is disappointing that President Biden did not commute all sentences of those on federal and military death row. We urge President Biden to go further and commute all existing death sentences.”
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