US President Joe Biden announced Monday that he is taking 37 people off federal death row to serve out life sentences behind bars — a decision that leaves only three federal prisoners awaiting execution when President-elect Donald Trump takes office next month,
CNN reports.
“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 announced in a statement released Monday.
Notably, the president did not commute the sentences of three people whose crimes included mass shootings or acts of terrorism: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of two brothers responsible for the deadly Boston Marathon bombing in 2013; Dylann Roof, a White nationalist who massacred nine people at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue 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 said, referring to his Justice Department’s halt on federal executions.
The majority of the 37 individuals whose sentences were commuted Monday were convicted for less high-profile offenses, such as murders tied to drug trafficking or the killings of prison guards or other inmates.
“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 his 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.”
The move comes as opponents of the death penalty are bracing for Trump’s return to the White House. During the 2024 campaign, Trump indicated he would restart federal executions and work to expand the pool of crimes eligible for capital punishment under federal law, which generally allows for the death penalty in cases of murder, espionage and treason.
