(NewsNation) — President Joe Biden announced that he is commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, meaning they will now have life sentences without the possibility of parole instead.
“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 statement released for publication on Monday. “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.”
In 2021, the Biden administration put a moratorium on federal death sentences in cases other than terrorism and “hate-motivated mass murder.”
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Throughout his time on the campaign trail for the 2024 election, Trump said his administration would not shy away from the death penalty, however.
“We’ve never had (such) massive amounts of drugs pouring into our country,” he said during a campaign event in Arizona. “And by the way, you’ll never solve the problem without the death penalty.”
During the last six months of Trump’s first term, a record 13 federal inmates were put to death. The last of these executions happened just days before Biden took office. The number far surpasses executions under any president for more than a century. Before July 2020, the federal government hadn’t executed anyone in 17 years. The Trump administration also approved using pentobarbital in lethal injections even with evidence it could cause pulmonary edema, a painful condition akin to drowning.
Hundreds of anti-capital punishment groups had been calling on Biden to commute the death row sentences, as they feared a renewed “execution spree” in a Trump presidency. Death Penalty Action, an anti-capital punishment coalition of more than 350 groups, sent Biden a letter talking about the “renewed concern and urgency” they had with Trump coming into office in less than two months.
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“Suddenly the whole world has changed and if Joe Biden doesn’t commute these sentences, then Donald Trump is going to kill them,” Abraham Bonowitz, the executive director of Death Penalty Action, previously told NewsNation before Biden’s commutations were revealed.
Earlier this month, Biden pardoned 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes and commuted the sentences of 1,500 people placed on home confinement. It was the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history. At the time, Biden said he would be taking more steps in the weeks ahead and would continue to review clemency petitions.
The clemency follows a broad pardon for his son Hunter, who was prosecuted for gun and tax crimes.
Biden also issued 122 commutations and 21 other pardons and broadly pardoned those convicted of use and simple possession of marijuana on federal lands and in the District of Columbia. In addition, he’s pardoned former U.S. service members convicted of violating a now-repealed military ban on consensual gay sex.
NewsNation digital reporter Safia Samee Ali and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
