(WASHINGTON) — On Monday, President Joe Biden made headlines with a pivotal decision to commute the sentences of 37 out of 40 individuals currently on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment. This announcement comes just weeks ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who has been a strong proponent of enhancing capital punishment.
This significant move spares those convicted of grave offenses, including the murder of law enforcement and military personnel, killings on federal property, and those engaged in violent bank robberies or drug trafficking. The group also includes individuals who have caused the deaths of guards or fellow inmates in federal facilities.
With Biden’s action, only three federal inmates remain subject to execution: Dylann Roof, convicted for the racially motivated massacre of nine Black churchgoers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the perpetrator of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, marking the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.
“Throughout my career, I have prioritized reducing violent crime and fostering a fair justice system,” Biden remarked in his announcement. “Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life without parole. These commutations are in line with the moratorium my administration has placed on federal executions, with exceptions only for acts of terrorism or hate-driven mass murders.”
Back in 2021, the Biden Administration established a moratorium on federal capital punishment to reassess existing protocols, effectively pausing executions throughout his presidency. However, Biden had previously indicated a desire to go further, expressing an intention to abolish federal executions entirely, without exceptions for terrorism or hate crimes.
During his presidential campaign in 2020, Biden’s platform outlined plans to “work towards passing legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level and encourage states to follow suit.”
Nonetheless, these commitments were notably absent from his reelection platform prior to his campaign suspension in July.
“Let me be clear: I denounce these murderers, mourn for the victims of their horrific actions, and empathize with the families who have faced unimaginable loss,” Biden stressed in his statement. “However, guided by my conscience and my experiences as a public defender, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vice president, and now president, I am increasingly convinced that we must abolish the death penalty at the federal level.”
Biden also subtly criticized Trump, asserting, “In good conscience, I cannot permit a new administration to resume the executions that I have halted.”
Trump, set to take office on January 20, has consistently advocated for expanding the death penalty. In his announcement for the 2024 campaign, he suggested that those “caught selling drugs” should face capital punishment for their egregious actions. He pledged to execute drug and human traffickers and even commended China’s stringent measures against drug dealers. During his first term, Trump played a crucial role in promoting the death penalty for drug offenders.
Under Trump’s presidency, there were 13 federal executions, the highest number for any president in modern history, with some occurring rapidly enough to raise concerns about the spread of COVID-19 at the federal death row facility in Indiana.
These executions marked the first at the federal level since 2003, with the last three occurring after Election Day 2020 but before Trump’s departure from office, making it the first time a lame-duck president oversaw federal executions since Grover Cleveland in 1889.
Biden has been under increasing pressure from advocacy groups urging him to act decisively to prevent Trump from broadening the use of capital punishment for federal inmates. This latest announcement follows Biden’s recent commutation of around 1,500 individuals who had been released from prison and placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with 39 others convicted of nonviolent offenses—marking the largest single-day clemency act in modern history.
This announcement also follows Biden’s controversial pardon of his son Hunter for federal gun and tax charges, which raised eyebrows in Washington. The pardon ignited discussions about whether Biden would contemplate broader preemptive pardons for administration officials and allies who might be targeted by Trump’s future administration.
Speculation regarding Biden’s commutation of federal death sentences heightened last week when the White House announced his upcoming visit to Italy for his final foreign trip of the presidency next month. Biden, a practicing Catholic, is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis, who recently called for prayers for U.S. death row inmates in the hopes of having their sentences commuted.
Martin Luther King III, who has publicly urged Biden to reconsider death sentences, applauded the president’s actions in a statement released by the White House, recognizing that the president “has done what no prior president was willing to do: take meaningful and lasting action to acknowledge the death penalty’s racist roots and address its ongoing inequities.”
Donnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose partner was killed by one of the individuals whose death sentence was commuted, shared his perspective, stating that executing “the person who killed my police partner and best friend would have brought me no peace.”
“The president has made the right decision here,” Oliverio added, “and it resonates with the faith that both he and I share.”
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Weissert reported from West Palm Beach, Florida.
