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President Biden pardons 37 death row inmates in the US

2024-12-23 21:57:29Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Biden pardons 37 death row inmates in the US
Joe Biden

President Joe Biden announced Monday that he has commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 people sentenced to death by federal courts, reducing their sentences to life in prison. The development comes weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, an outspoken supporter of expanding the death penalty, takes office.

The decision spares the lives of people convicted of murder by federal courts, including those convicted of killing police and military officers, those involved in bloody bank robberies or drug trafficking, and the killings of prison guards or prisoners in federal facilities.

Only three people will still face the death penalty. They are Dylann Roof, convicted of killing 9 black worshippers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the perpetrator of the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in United States history.

"I have dedicated my career to reducing sentences for violent crimes and ensuring a fair and effective justice system," President Biden's statement said.

"Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people sentenced to death, reducing them to life in prison without the possibility of parole. This commutation is consistent with my administration's moratorium on federal executions, except in cases related to terrorism and hate-motivated mass murders," the statement continued.

In 2021, the Biden administration announced a moratorium on the death penalty in federal courts. The measure suspended executions during Mr. Biden's term.

In fact, in the past, President Biden had promised to go even further on this issue, vowing to end the death penalty, without exception for crimes such as terrorism and hate-motivated mass murders.

In 2020 while running for president, his campaign website stated that he would "work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level and encourage states to follow the federal government's lead."

But no such thing appeared when he ran for reelection in 2024 and until before he withdrew from the race in July.

"I unequivocally condemn these murderers, feel grief for the victims of their heinous acts, and pain for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable losses," President Biden's statement said.

"But, guided by my conscience and my experience, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as vice president, and now president, I am more convinced than ever that we must ban the death penalty at the federal level."

Referring to his political opponent Donald Trump, he said: "I cannot in good conscience stand by and allow a new administration to resume the executions that I have stopped."

Mr. Trump, who takes office on January 20, has often spoken about expanding the death penalty.

During a speech announcing his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, Mr. Trump called for those "caught selling drugs to be sentenced to death," calling their acts heinous.

He later promised to sentence drug smugglers and human traffickers to death, and supported China's harsh treatment of drug smugglers.

Even during his first term, Mr. Trump came out in support of death sentences for drug smugglers.

During Mr. Trump's first term, 13 executions were carried out for crimes committed on federal territory, more than during the term of any president in the country's modern history.

Some of them were carried out so quickly that they are thought to have contributed to the spread of coronavirus at the federal death row facility in Indiana.

These were the first executions since 2003 for federal crimes.

The last three occurred after Election Day in November 2020, but before Mr. Trump left office in January 2021. This marked the first time that executions were carried out in the final months of a president's term while his successor had been elected, since President Grover Cleveland in 1889.

Mr. Biden has faced pressure recently from human rights groups urging him to act to make it more difficult for Mr. Trump to use the death penalty for prisoners for federal crimes.

The president's announcement comes less than two weeks after he pardoned 39 people convicted of non-violent crimes and reduced the sentences of about 1,500 others.

In terms of number, these decisions were the largest ever taken in a single day.

The developments followed President Biden's post-election pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted on federal weapons and tax evasion charges, even though he had long said he would not do so. The decision sparked debate in Washington.

The pardon also raised questions about whether he would issue preliminary pardons to administration officials and allies, whom the White House is concerned could be unfairly targeted by Mr. Trump's second administration.

Speculation that Mr Biden might commute death sentences intensified last week after the White House announced that he plans to visit Italy in January, his final trip abroad as president.

Mr. Biden, a practicing Catholic, will meet with Pope Francis, who has recently called for prayers for those on death row in the United States, in the hope that their sentences will be reduced.

Martin Luther King III, the eldest son of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., said in a statement released by the White House that Mr. Biden "has done what no president before him was willing to do, by taking meaningful action, not only to acknowledge the racist roots of the death penalty, but also to correct the ongoing injustice in its imposition."

Donnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose colleague was killed by a death row inmate whose sentence was commuted, said his execution would not have brought peace to his partner and friend.

"The president did what is right and consistent with the beliefs he and I share," Mr. Oliverio said in a statement also released by the White House.


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