In a significant move just weeks before leaving office, President Joe Biden announced Monday that he is commuting the sentences of 37 of 40 people on federal death row to life without parole. The decision leaves only three individuals on federal death row, whose crimes involve acts of terrorism or mass murders.
“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 said in a statement released by The White House.
Not included in the commutations are Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber; Dylann Roof, a White nationalist who murdered nine Black churchgoers in 2015; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
“These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my Administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder,” Biden explained, referring to the Justice Department’s halt on federal executions under his administration.
Biden was candid about the gravity of his decision. “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,” he said in the 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.”
American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony D. Romero praised President Biden’s decision, calling it a “historic and courageous step in addressing the failed death penalty in the United States” and a move that brings the country “much closer to outlawing the barbaric practice once again.”
“President Biden has taken the most consequential step of any president in our history to address the immoral and unconstitutional harms of capital punishment,” Romero said, adding, “This will undoubtedly be one of the seminal achievements of the Biden presidency.”
The timing of the announcement comes as the nation anticipates a shift in the federal approach to the death penalty. President-elect Donald Trump has already signaled plans to resume federal executions and potentially expand capital punishment to include crimes like drug trafficking, CNN reports.
Trump’s transition team did not hold back in criticizing Biden’s decision. “This abhorrent decision benefits those among the worst killers in the world,” said Steven Cheung, a Trump transition spokesperson. President Trump stands for the rule of law, which will return when he is back in the White House after he was elected with a massive mandate from the American people.”
Biden’s announcement follows a month of high-profile clemency actions. Earlier this month, he pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, for federal tax and gun-related convictions and granted clemency to approximately 1,500 individuals—the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.
