Biden Commutes Nearly All Federal Death Penalty Sentences
Under pressure to fulfill a campaign promise before he leaves office, President Joe Biden will commute the sentences of nearly all federal inmates on death row to life in prison today, with the exception of three mass murderers.
The White House announced today that Biden is commuting the death penalty sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates, leaving only three sentences intact: those of Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018; Dylann Roof, who killed nine black parishioners at a South Carolina church in 2015; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber.
“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 said in a White House 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 stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
Biden faced pressure from a broad coalition of civil liberties, law enforcement, and religious groups—including Pope Francis—to fulfill a 2020 campaign pledge to end the federal death penalty. The Biden administration had imposed a moratorium on federal executions but continued to seek the death penalty in terrorism and mass-murder cases. For instance, the Justice Department recently filed capital charges against Luigi Mangione, the alleged murderer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.Â
The issue took on life-and-death stakes after Donald Trump won reelection. The incoming Trump administration carried out 13 executions in the final six months of its first term and will almost surely lift t
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