Associated Press
President Joe Biden announced on Monday he is commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment, takes office.
The move spares the lives of people convicted in killings, including the slayings 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.
It means just three federal inmates are 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.
“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. 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.”
He took a political jab at Trump, saying, “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
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, and some may have happened fast enough to have contributed to the spread of the coronavirus at the federal death row facility in Indiana.
Those were 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 comes 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.
The announcement also followed the post-election pardon that Biden granted his son Hunter on federal gun and tax charges after long saying he would not issue one, sparking an uproar in Washington. The pardon also raised questions about whether he would issue sweeping preemptive pardons for administration officials and other allies who the White House worries could be unjustly targeted by Trump’s second administration.
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.”
Donnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose partner was killed by one of the men whose death sentence was converted, said the execution of “the person who killed my police partner and best friend would have brought me no peace.”
“The President has done what is right here,” Oliverio said in a statement also issued by the White House, “and what is consistent with the faith he and I share.”
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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
27 comments
"THE ALL KNOWING ALL SEEING" EARL PITTS AMERICAN
December 23, 2024 at 8:30 am
Good Morn ‘Ting America,
Very few know about the obsure section of “Our Great Nation’s Constitution” allowing an incoming President to negate an outgoing President’s pardons made under duress or dementia.
THAT BEING SAID:
Everyone can “Relax their Political Sphincters” secure in the knowledge that 98% of 8iden’s pardons shall be reversed on “Day One” of The Sage Trump Administration.
Thank you America,
“THE ALL KNOWING ALL SEEING” EARL PITTS AMERICAN
forsaken
December 23, 2024 at 8:50 am
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Earl Pitts American
December 25, 2024 at 2:51 pm
Thanks for the invitation, Foreskin, but even though I, Earl Pitts American, am fortunate to have a Ginormous Johnson, I feel it may not be in keeping with my religion to expose my private parts in your scheme to get young good-looking men, such as myself, Earl Pitts American, involved in the sinfull life of making and selling on-line adult movies via the “Chinkey Chinkey Chinese” Tock Tick application. Just think about the “Chinkey Chinkey Chinese Men” for a moment, Foreskin … that entire country of male midgets with their extra small “Oscar Meyer Johnsons” would likely all attempt suicide over the shame of their extra small Johnsons. Not to mention all the females, once they see Earl’s Ginormas Johnson, over there in “Chinkey Chinkey ChinaLand” could never settle for their men’s small Johnsons any longer and logically make a mad “Female Rush” to Our Great Nation’s Border in hopes of snagging a Sage Patriot, such as myself, Earl Pitts American, with a Ginormas Johnson, to make their Most Intimate Dreams of Riding The Big Pole cum true.
BUT IN CLOSING:
Thanks … but no thanks, Foreskin,
Yours Truley,
Earl Pitts American
Mr. Speaker
December 25, 2024 at 3:57 pm
Thanks Earl,
The Transition Team just held an emergency meeting on the above issue and one of our first actions, upon taking office, will be to designate your girthy johnson a National Treasure. As such any and all images, online postings, or movies will become property of The Smithsonian and can not be released without permission.
For our enemies to see the size of that thing will cause World-Wide jelousy making our job impossable.
Please, Earl, in the meantime, no pics, vidios, movies, ect…we are emailing a non-disclosure document for you to get signed by all your lucky Lady Friends in the meantime.
Earl keep it zipped.
Mr. Speaker
michael l. Hammond
December 23, 2024 at 9:38 am
Biden has no problem with killing babies, but saves the murderers…no shock. What a joke of a President, what a disgrace to America. Hopefully Americans will Never forget the lawfare and graft of this criminal family
TJC
December 23, 2024 at 11:11 am
What a load of bullshit.
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December 23, 2024 at 3:36 pm
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A day without Libturds
December 24, 2024 at 6:14 pm
You libturds are so full of shit I can smell you a mile away. Save it for your blue cultist losers fukstick
MarvinM
December 25, 2024 at 3:38 pm
You wrote “what a disgrace to America.”
You do realize that a lot of countries find the fact that America even HAS a death penalty to be barbaric, right? There’s a lot of Americans who think the same thing. So, in their minds, what Biden did is the exact opposite of a disgrace.
You do also realize that Biden did not absolve them of any crimes and they will remain in prison until they rot and die. That not enough for you? I’d hardly call life imprisonment “saving” them.
As far as who is using lawfare and graft (and don’t forget all the Trump grift they do too – cheap gold tennis shoes, $60 Bibles?), Trump pardoned his daughter’s father-in-law and has now named him as Ambassador to France.
Biden’s sentence commutations do not threaten anyone else now.
Trump’s continued selection of often unqualified persons to positions of power certainly will threaten us all. I hope y’all follow the confirmation hearings and contact your representatives and senators and let them know what you think.
Mike Hunt
December 26, 2024 at 11:58 pm
Move to those countries.
MarvinM
December 27, 2024 at 3:51 pm
Why should I have to move?
There is a trend in America against the death penalty partly for one of the most important reasons I am now against it (when I was OK with it in my earlier years of life) and that is that it is in no way a deterrent to crime. Would-be murderers do not think “Gosh, this state has a death penalty, I guess I’d better go murder in a different state”.
Gallup polls have been tracking Americans attitudes and the high for death penalty support for persons convicted of murder was 1994 – 80% in favor, 16% not in favor. Since then, there has been a steady decline in support for the death penalty. 2024 is currently being represented as 53% in favor, 43% not in favor.
And while that’s still a little over 50% of Americans, the more important metric is the trend line.
There are many things that human beings of all sorts did historically speaking that we now find barbaric. Attitudes can change. And that seems to be what is being seen in the data.
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December 23, 2024 at 10:22 am
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Paul Passarelli
December 23, 2024 at 10:51 am
Biden’s contempt is on full display. This action was not about the Death Penalty, it was about President Donald Trump!
Erron Judgement
December 24, 2024 at 4:44 am
So he spares some but not all. He sets himself as ultimate judge–this old white man utilizes a kingly power in the service of. . .justice? Morality? Consistency? Let’s try “Whimsy.” Biden once again shows how his judgment is so flawed, illogical and unreasonable that it should frighten any American who is fully aware of how powerful the presidency is.
Ocean Joe
December 24, 2024 at 11:54 am
A long time ago these guys in powdered wigs put together a document that included the power of pardons. Seems odd that a newly formed nation freed from a monarchy would entrust that kind of power to its’ chief executive. But they did. And we are party to that contract by birth or by naturalization. But you already knew that, right? Isn’t that why the J6 mob stormed through our capitol chanting “protect the constitution?” Or were they just following orders from the corpulent loser of the 2020 election?
A day without Libturds
December 24, 2024 at 6:17 pm
I’m glad you pathetic losers are still crying about your president elect. Stay negative. That way you will continue to take years off your life and die quicker. Your passing makes the world better. Libturd scum.
Ocean Joe
December 26, 2024 at 8:47 am
So angry on Christmas eve, but thanks for the inspiration. My goal is to outlive your hero and then listen to all the nutty things you Qanon types come up with to explain it.
He’s entertaining, that’s for sure. Plenty of laughs ahead until he leaves the country in shambles like last time. And thanks Mr. Biden, record job growth and record levels for the stock market. But it’s time for another Republican to trash the country like Hoover, and W, and Trump 1.
TJC
December 24, 2024 at 1:54 pm
“…his judgment is so flawed, illogical and unreasonable that it should frighten any American who is fully aware of how powerful the presidency is.”
What a perfect description of Donald J. Trump. Thanks!
A day without Libturds
December 24, 2024 at 6:20 pm
You will always be trump’s bitch. You freaks had the ball and you dropped it. STFU and own your own failure for once you pathetic worm.
TJC
December 25, 2024 at 10:50 am
It’s the Trumpsuckers like you who look like Trump’s bitches, always licking his ass and barking at his critics. There’s a certain air of fear about Trumpsuckers, paranoia perhaps, a sense that Trump himself will bring on his own downfall — again.
THE SAGE EARL PITTS AMERICAN
December 24, 2024 at 3:12 pm
Erron, you’ve got to be kidding if you think Biden alone made one … EVEN ONE … decision in his entire term as President.
Erron, sadly your Erronious Belief that Biden actually made “EVEN ONE DECISION” boils down To This:
Erron, “YOU MIGHT BE A DOOK 4 BRAINS LEFTY OR RINO”.
Thanks Erron,
THE SAGE EARL PITTS AMERICAN
Earl Pitts American
December 24, 2024 at 11:13 am
BREAKING NEWS AMERICA,
Biden accidently pardoned Matt Gaitez.
Earl Pitts American
Ocean Joe
December 24, 2024 at 11:59 am
Earl, Happy Holidays. I know you miss Rick, maybe he’ll show up on Christmas to remind you how wrong you always are.
Then again, upon release of the House report, now we finally know why Matt was angling for a pardon as Trump’s first term ended. I didn’t see where the underage sex took place in all that, so he skates.
James Fallon
December 25, 2024 at 4:56 pm
Dang after reviewing the above comments of a wide cross-section of America I come to just one conclusion.
I wish I was Earl. JF Late Night
Earl Pitts American
December 25, 2024 at 5:17 pm
Thanks Jimmy for the tickits but I’m so involved with the transition that I’m going to pass.
Earl
Cindy
December 29, 2024 at 8:11 pm
Seems Biden doesn’t believe in an eye for and eye retaliation..the street people should think so when they didn’t get their money
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