Biden gives life in prison to most federal death row inmates: What to know
WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden announced on Monday that he is commuting a majority of those currently on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment.
The move comes just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump will take office. Trump has been an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment.
Here’s what to know:
Biden commutes many death row sentences to life without parole
FILE - U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at the Department of Labor on Dec. 16, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row, the White House said in a statement.
It includes people convicted in killings, including the murders of police and military officers, people on federal land and those involved in deadly bank robberies or drug deals, as well as the killings of guards or prisoners in federal facilities.
"I’ve dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system," Biden said in a statement.
"Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole," Biden continued. "These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder."
The Biden administration in 2021 announced a moratorium on federal capital punishment to study the protocols used, which suspended executions during Biden's term. But Biden actually had promised to go further on the issue in the past, pledging to end federal executions without the caveats for terrorism and hate-motivated, mass killings.
While running for president in 2020, Biden's campaign website said he would "work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example."
Similar language didn't appear on Biden's reelection website before he left the presidential race in July.
"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's statement said. "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."
The federal inmates still facing execution
With Biden’s move, there are now just three federal inmates still facing execution.
They are Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.
Move comes ahead of Trump’s second term
Biden commutes the sentences of 37 death row inmates
President Biden is commuting the sentences of nearly all the inmates on federal death row, a move that comes not even two weeks after he went through with the "largest single-day grant of clemency" in American history, the White House announced Monday. Of the 40 inmates on federal death row, according to DeathPenaltyInfo.org, Biden is commuting 37 men sentenced to death, reclassifying their sentences to life without the possibility of parole.
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has spoken frequently of expanding executions.
In a speech announcing his 2024 campaign, Trump called for those "caught selling drugs to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts." He later promised to execute drug and human smugglers and even praised China's harsher treatment of drug peddlers. During his first term as president, Trump also advocated for the death penalty for drug dealers.
There were 13 federal executions during Trump's first term, more than under any president in modern history, according to the Associated Press.
Those were also the first federal executions since 2003. The final three occurred after Election Day in November 2020 but before Trump left office the following January, the first time federal prisoners were put to death by a lame-duck president since Grover Cleveland in 1889.
Biden faced recent pressure from advocacy groups urging him to act to make it more difficult for Trump to increase the use of capital punishment for federal inmates.
The president's announcement also came less than two weeks after he commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, and of 39 others convicted of nonviolent crimes, the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.
Biden also pardoned his son Hunter on federal gun and tax charges after long saying he would not issue one, sparking an uproar in Washington.
Speculation that Biden could commute federal death sentences intensified last week after the White House announced he plans to visit Italy on the final foreign trip of his presidency next month. Biden, a practicing Catholic, will meet with Pope Francis, who recently called for prayers for U.S. death row inmates in hopes their sentences will be commuted.
Martin Luther King III, who publicly urged Biden to change the death sentences, said in a statement issued by the White House that the president "has done what no president before him was willing to do: take meaningful and lasting action not just to acknowledge the death penalty’s racist roots but also to remedy its persistent unfairness."
The Source: This story was written based on a statement published by the White House on Dec. 23, 2024. It was reported from Cincinnati, and the Associated Press contributed.