WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 federal death row inmates on Monday, weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, an outspoken supporter of expanding the death penalty, replaced them with life sentences. announced that it would switch to , took office.
This measure would protect people convicted of murder, including killing police officers and military personnel, people on federal property, people involved in deadly bank robberies and drug trafficking, and killing guards and prisoners at federal facilities. Lives will be saved.
This decision means that three federal inmates will be executed. They are Dylann Roof, who in 2015 racially murdered nine black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. And Robert Bowers shot and killed 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history.
“I have 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 federal death row inmates to life in prison without the possibility of parole. This is consistent with the moratorium placed on federal executions.”
The reaction was great, both pros and cons. President Trump’s spokesperson called the decision “abhorrent.”
“They are among the world’s worst murderers, and this abhorrent decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones.” President Trump’s spokesperson said. Stephen Chan said: “President Trump supports the rule of law, which he was elected with a strong mandate from the American people, and will return to when he returns to the White House.”
Heather Turner, whose mother was killed in a 2017 bank robbery in Conway, South Carolina, blasted the decision in a social media post, saying Biden did not consider the victims of these crimes.
“Words cannot express the pain and trauma we have endured over the past seven years,” Turner wrote on Facebook, adding that the weeks she spent in court seeking justice “now seem like a mere waste of time. ” he said.
“Our justice system is broken. Our government is a joke,” she said. “Joe Biden’s decision is clearly a gross abuse of power. He and his supporters have blood on their hands.”
Some of Roof’s victims supported Biden’s decision to keep him on death row.
Michael Graham, whose sister Cynthia Heard was killed by Roof, said Roof’s lack of remorse and the smoldering white nationalism in the United States should make Roof eligible for the death penalty. He said it meant he was a dangerous and evil person.
“This was a crime against his race for doing what all Americans do: go to Bible study on Wednesday nights,” Graham said. “It didn’t matter who was there, only that they were black.”
The Biden administration announced a moratorium on federal capital punishment in 2021 to study the protocols used, and executions were halted during Biden’s term. But Biden has actually promised to go further on the issue in the past, pledging to abolish the federal death penalty without warning against mass killings motivated by terrorism or hatred.
While running for president in 2020, Biden’s campaign website said he would “work to pass legislation to abolish the death penalty at the federal level and encourage states to follow the federal government’s example.”
Similar language did not appear on Biden’s re-election website until he withdrew from the presidential race in July.
“Make no mistake about it, I condemn these murderers, I mourn the victims of their despicable acts, and my heart goes out to all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in a statement. ” he 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 end the death penalty at the federal level. I am.”
He launched a political attack on President Trump, saying, “I cannot in good conscience allow a new administration to resume executions that I have stopped.”
President Trump, who will be inaugurated on January 20, has frequently spoken out about expanding the use of the death penalty. In a speech announcing his 2024 campaign, President Trump called for “those caught selling drugs to be subject to the death penalty for their heinous acts.” He later promised to execute drug smugglers and human smugglers, and even praised China’s harsher treatment of drug traffickers. During his first term as president, Trump also advocated for the death penalty for drug traffickers.
There were 13 federal executions during President Trump’s first term, more than any other president in modern history, and at a federal death row facility in Indiana, they were carried out so quickly that the coronavirus spread. There may have been some.
These were the first federal executions since 2003. The last three were carried out after Election Day in November 2020 and before President Trump left office in January of the following year, making them the first executions of federal prisoners by a lame-duck president since Grover Cleveland in 1889.
Biden has recently come under pressure from advocacy groups to act to make it more difficult for President Trump to carry out the death penalty on federal prisoners. The president’s announcement also reduced the sentences of approximately 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as 39 others convicted of nonviolent crimes, from two to two. It took place less than a week later. This is the largest single-day verdict. Generosity in modern history.
The announcement comes after Biden granted a post-election pardon to his son Hunter, who had long said he would not pardon him on federal gun and tax charges, sparking an uproar in Washington. Ta. The pardon also allows the president to issue sweeping, preemptive pardons to administration officials and other allies that the White House fears could be unfairly targeted by the second Trump administration. It also raised questions about whether
Speculation intensified last week that Biden could commute his federal death sentence after the White House announced plans for him to visit Italy next month on his final trip abroad. Biden, a devout Catholic, is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis, who recently called for prayers for the commutation of sentences for U.S. death row inmates.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has long called for an end to the death penalty, said Biden’s decision is “an important step forward in advancing the cause of human dignity in our country” and brings the country “one step closer to building a culture.” Ta. of life. ”
Martin Luther King III, who publicly called on Biden to change the death penalty, said in a statement shared by the White House that the president “did something no previous president was willing to do: allow the death penalty.” “But also to take meaningful and lasting action.” This is not only to address the racist roots of the death penalty, but also to rectify its persistent inequities. ”
Madeline Cohen, an attorney for Norris Holder, who faced the death penalty for shooting a security guard during a bank robbery in St. Louis in 1997, said his case “explains the racial bias and arbitrariness that led the president to commute his federal death sentence.” It exemplifies.” Cohen said. Holder, who is black, was sentenced by an all-white jury.
Copyright 2024 Associated Press. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
