President of Washington,Only three individuals remain on execution row in federal prisons after Joe Biden revealed on Monday that he is commuting the death sentences of 37 convicts.
According to the White House, the commuted sentences would be reclassified as life terms with no chance of release.
“These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my Administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder,” Biden stated in a press release. “Don’t be misled: I abhor these killers, I hurt for all the families who have endured unspeakable and irreversible loss, and I grieve for the victims of their heinous crimes.
However, Biden said in his statement, “I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level, guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President, and now President.” I cannot morally allow a new administration to carry on with the executions I stopped.
Three men are still on federal death row: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers in 2013; Dylann Roof, who killed nine people in a shooting at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; and Robert Bowers, who killed eleven people in the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018.
In 2019, Biden stated as a presidential candidate that “we must eliminate the death penalty.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland put a halt on federal executions in 2021. During Biden’s administration, no federal prisoners have been put to death.
The Justice Department, however, said this year that it would pursue the death penalty for the white supremacist who shot and killed ten Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, in 2022.
About half of states permit the death penalty in addition to federal death penalties. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that over two dozen persons have been put to death this year. There are over 2,200 death row inmates nationwide.
Billie Allen, one of the prisoners whose sentences Biden would commute, has insisted on his innocence.
In an interview last month, Allen stated, “As someone who is innocent, he should do the right thing sooner rather than later.” He added, “I want to believe that he’s going to do the right thing.”
Allen added that he thought his optimism was “cut off” after Donald Trump emerged victorious in last month’s presidential election. Allen told NBC News that he had been getting ready to be put to death under the new government, just hours after the commutations were announced.
He added, “I wrote my last will and testament and sent it to my sister.”
In 1998, Allen received a death sentence for robbing a bank and shooting and killing a security guard. Allen claims that DNA evidence will clear him, so he has asked the authorities to examine it.
He remarked, “I am grateful, and I will say, on behalf of the majority of people here, they are also grateful.” Most of the people in here when they heard the news, is, this is a second chance for me to be better.
Around the time of Trump’s election, some of the correctional staff members taunted inmates at the prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, according to a death row inmate and two federal defenders. Execution rehearsals have also increased at the prison, where almost all federal death row inmates are incarcerated, in the lead-up to Trump’s inauguration, according to the same sources.
A Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesperson declined to comment on the allegations about correctional staff members out of “privacy concerns.”
“However, we can share that the Federal Bureau of Prisons is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all individuals in our population, our employees, and the public,” said the spokesperson, Emery Nelson. “Humane treatment of the men and women in our custody is a top priority. Allegations of misconduct are thoroughly investigated, and appropriate action is taken if such allegations are proven true.”
Trump said on the campaign trail that he would push for the Justice Department toseek the death penaltyfor 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 when he launched his 2024 campaign.
He has also called for thedeath penaltyfor “any migrant who kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.”
Thirteen federal prisoners were put to death during Trump’s first term all in the last six months he was in office. Before that, the most recent federal execution was in 2003.
Kelley Henry is a federal defender for Rejon Taylor, one of the inmates being taken off of death row by Biden’s action. Henry previously represented Lisa Montgomery, whowas executedin the final days of the first Trump administration. She said the rapid pace of federal executions at the end of the Trump administration was “brutal.”
“It was like the legal system was suspended, is the best way I can put it,” she said in an interview last month.
Reached for comment about use of the death penalty during the end of Trump’s last term and his plans for his next term, Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said he will stick with his campaign vows.
“President Trump meant what he said on the campaign trail: he will enforce the death penalty for drug dealers who knowingly sell deadly poison to their fellow Americans, and illegal immigrant criminals who kill innocent American citizens,” she said in a statement. “He will deliver on these promises.”
Another Trump transition spokesperson, Steven Cheung, also condemned Biden’s action.
These are among the worst killers in the world and this abhorrent decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones, Cheung said, adding that Trump “stands for the rule of law.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., used similar language to criticize the commutations in apostonX, calling the move “a slap in the face to the families who have suffered immeasurably at the hands of these animals.
Trump would need congressional support to expand the types of crimes for which prosecutors could seek the death penalty, and any changes would be likely to face legal challenges.
Biden this monthcommuted the sentencesof nearly 1,500 nonviolent offenders and pardoned an additional 39 people, saying in a statement that “America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances.”
Biden also pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who was set to be sentenced on a federal gun charges conviction, as well as a separate case in which he pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion charges. The president had said he would not pardon his son.
NBC Newshasreportedthat Biden is considering issuing pre-emptive pardons for people whom he thinks Trump might legally target during his second administration.
Megan Lebowitz and Sarah Dean reported from Washington and Abigail Brooks from New York City.
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