Washington — President Joe Biden Commutations were announced for 37 prisoners on Monday, leaving only three on death row In federal prison.
The White House said the reduced sentence would be reclassified as life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“These commutations are consistent with my administration’s moratorium on federal executions, except for terrorism and hate-motivated mass murders,” Biden said in a statement. “Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers and stand for them. My heart goes out to the victims of this despicable act, and my heart aches for all the families who have suffered hardship and irreparable loss.
“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 said. the statement added. “I cannot in good conscience stand by and let the new administration resume the executions that I stopped.”
Three men still on federal death row are Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people in prison. tree of life synagogue Filmed in Pittsburgh in 2018; Dylann Roof killed 9 people in a shooting historically black churches in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, boston marathon bomber 2013.
As a presidential candidate, Biden Debated in 2019 “We must abolish the death penalty.”
In 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland issue suspension order Regarding federal executions. No federal prisoners have been executed during Biden’s presidency.
However, the Justice Department said this year it would seek death penalty Remembering the white supremacist who killed 10 black people in a 2022 shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
In addition to the federal death penalty, about half of the states allow the death penalty. More than two dozen people have been executed this year, according to the agency Death Penalty Information Center. About 2,200 people are on death row nationwide.
Billie Allen, one of the inmates whose sentences will be commuted by Biden, maintains her innocence.
“I want to believe he’s going to do the right thing,” Allen said of Biden in an interview last month, adding, “As an innocent man, he should do the right thing sooner rather than later. “
Allen said he felt his hopes were “cut off” when Donald Trump won the presidential election last month. He wrote his last will and testament, explaining that he had to “prepare for the worst.”
Some correctional officers at a prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, mocked inmates during the Trump election, according to a death row inmate and two federal defenders. Nearly all federal death row inmates are behind bars and execution rehearsals have increased ahead of Trump’s inauguration, according to the same source.
The federal Bureau of Prisons did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump said on the campaign trail that he would push the Justice Department seeking death penalty For drug dealers.
“We will demand that all drug traffickers who are caught be sentenced to death for their heinous acts,” Trump said as he launched his 2024 campaign.
He also called for death penalty “Any immigrant who kills a U.S. citizen or law enforcement officer.”
Thirteen federal prisoners were executed during Trump’s first term — all in his last six months in office. Prior to this, the most recent federal execution was in 2003.
Kelly Henry is the federal defender for Reijon Taylor, one of the inmates taken off death row as a result of Biden’s action. Henry previously represented Lisa Montgomery, who executed In the final days of the first Trump administration. She said the pace of federal executions at the end of the Trump administration was “brutal.”
“It’s like the legal system is on hold, that’s the best way I can put it,” she said in an interview last month.
Commenting on Trump’s use of the death penalty at the end of his last term and his plans for the next term, Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said he would abide by his campaign vows.
“President Trump said it during the campaign: he will pursue the death penalty for drug dealers who knowingly sell deadly poisons to fellow Americans and illegal immigrant criminals who kill innocent American citizens,” she said in a statement. These promises will be fulfilled.”
Trump needs support from Congress to expand the types of crimes for which prosecutors can seek the death penalty, and any changes are likely to face legal challenges.
Biden this month commutation “America was founded on the promise of possibility and second chances,” it said in a statement.
Biden also pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, who was to be sentenced for a federal gun charge conviction and who pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion charges in a separate case. The president has previously said he would not pardon his son.
nbc news reported Biden is considering preemptive pardons for people he believes Trump may have legitimately targeted during his second administration.
Megan Lebowitz and Sarah Dean reported from Washington, and Abigail Brooks reported from New York.
