Biden Commutes Most Federal Death Sentences Before Trump's Term | News about Joe Biden

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people at the federal level sentenced to death in his weeks in office ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's second term.

The move, announced Monday, means the 37 individuals will instead face life in prison for their convictions, according to the White House. Three other prisoners convicted of deadly hate or “terrorism” offenses will continue to face execution.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these killers, I grieve for the victims of their despicable actions, and I grieve for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in a statement.

“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 end the use of capital punishment at the federal level,” he said.

The announcement comes just weeks before Trump takes office. The president-elect, whose first four-year term ends in 2021, regularly calls for the death penalty for undocumented migrants who kill American citizens.

During his first term, he oversaw the execution of 13 federal prisoners, the most of any president in the last 120 years.

Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 election, campaigned as an opponent of the death penalty. His administration imposed a moratorium on most federal executions when he took office.

“These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has placed on federal executions in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder,” Biden said in the statement.

Three inmates will remain on federal death row.

They include Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – who helped carry out the Boston Marathon bombing which killed three in 2013. – and Dylan Roof – a white supremacist who in 2015 shot and killed nine black churchgoers in a racist attack in Charleston, South Carolina.

Robert Bowerswho killed 11 Jewish worshipers in a 2018 mass shooting. at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, will also continue to face execution.

Meanwhile, nine people convicted of murdering other inmates, four convicted of murders committed during bank robberies and one who killed a prison guard were among those whose sentences were commuted.

Also included was Billy Jerome Allen, who was convicted in 1998. at age 19 for killing a security guard during a robbery in Missouri.

The case has long drawn attention due to what Amnesty International described as “serious concerns about racial bias, his young age at the time and the lack of evidence linking him to the crime”.

“Cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment”

Biden's announcement followed calls from several rights groups that pointed to Trump's rhetoric and history when it comes to federal executions.

There have been no federal executions since 2003, when Trump took office. The last federal execution in the US took place on January 16, 2021, four days before Trump left the White House.

In a statement, Amnesty International USA executive director Paul O'Brien applauded Biden's move, but said he needed to go further.

“The death penalty is the most cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, and President Biden's decision eleven hours before leaving office to commute these death sentences is a big moment for human rights,” O'Brien said.

“The President's decision is a significant step toward his 2020 pledge.” to end the death penalty at the federal level and incentivize states to follow suit,” he said.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states. Another six – Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee – have moratoriums.

In 2024 they are 25 executions in the US at the state level.