(Scypre.com) – In a sweeping decision that came just weeks before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump—an outspoken supporter of capital punishment—President Joe Biden on Monday announced that he would commute the sentences of 37 people on federal death row to life in prison without parole. The sudden move will spare individuals convicted of violent killings, including the murders of police officers, military personnel, and federal employees, as well as those involved in lethal bank robberies or drug-related homicides.
Biden’s decision leaves three high-profile inmates on federal death row who face possible execution: Dylann Roof, convicted in the 2015 racist massacre of nine Black worshippers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, responsible for the 2013 attack; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018—the deadliest antisemitic attack on U.S. soil.
“I’ve 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 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole. These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”
The White House quickly faced backlash from Trump’s camp, with a spokesperson for the president-elect calling the move “abhorrent.”
“These are among the worst killers in the world and this abhorrent decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones,” said Trump spokesman Steven Cheung. “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.”
Heather Turner, whose mother was killed during a 2017 bank robbery in Conway, South Carolina, also expressed outrage. She took to social media to criticize the president’s decision, suggesting he failed to consider the anguish of victims’ families.
“The pain and trauma we have endured over the last 7 years has been indescribable,” Turner wrote on Facebook. Weeks in court “in search of justice” have now become “just a waste of time,” she added.
“Our judicial system is broken. Our government is a joke,” Turner continued. “Joe Biden’s decision is a clear gross abuse of power. He, and his supporters, have blood on their hands.”
However, some families of Roof’s victims commended the president’s decision to keep Roof on death row. Michael Graham, whose sister Cynthia Hurd was among the nine people Roof murdered, believes Roof is exactly the sort of individual for whom the death penalty is intended.
“This was a crime against a race of people who were doing something all Americans do on a Wednesday night—go to Bible study,” Graham said. “It didn’t matter who was there, only that they were Black.”
A History of Opposition to the Death Penalty
In 2021, the Biden administration declared a moratorium on federal executions, aiming to review the protocols under which capital punishment is carried out. Although Biden had previously vowed to eradicate the federal death penalty entirely—without exceptions—his decision on Monday comes with exemptions for terrorism and hate-fueled mass killings.
During his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden pledged that he would work toward abolishing the federal death penalty and encourage states to follow suit. Yet his reelection campaign platform did not reaffirm that promise, which drew criticism from advocacy groups seeking more definitive action.
“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. “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.”
Biden also took aim at the incoming administration:
“In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
Trump’s Track Record and Future Plans
When Trump takes office on January 20, he will bring with him a history of championing the use of the death penalty. During a speech launching his 2024 presidential bid, he called for capital punishment for “those caught selling drugs,” and in the past, he has praised countries like China for imposing harsh penalties on drug dealers.
While serving his first term, Trump oversaw 13 federal executions—more than any modern president had carried out—which ended a 17-year de facto pause on the federal use of capital punishment. Notably, three of those executions occurred after the November 2020 election but before Trump left office in January 2021. It was the first time since 1889 that a lame-duck president carried out federal executions.
Growing Pressure and Recent Clemency Actions
Biden’s announcement follows heightened pressure from abolitionist groups, which urged the president to act before leaving office. Advocates argue that a Trump return to the White House could bring an escalation in federal executions. Less than two weeks ago, Biden commuted the sentences of around 1,500 people who had been released on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with 39 others serving time for nonviolent offenses—a record-setting single-day act of clemency in modern history.
Moreover, the president’s actions come on the heels of his pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, on federal gun and tax charges. That move sparked intense debate in Washington, with some speculating whether Biden might grant broader preemptive pardons to administration officials and allies who could face legal scrutiny under a second Trump presidency.
Speculation about commutations for federal death row inmates intensified when the White House announced that Biden, a practicing Catholic, would travel to Italy for his final foreign trip in office, where he would meet with Pope Francis. The pontiff had recently called for prayers on behalf of U.S. death row inmates, hoping their sentences might be commuted.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has long advocated for an end to the death penalty, applauded Biden’s decision as a “significant step in advancing the cause of human dignity in our nation” and an advance toward “building a culture of life.”
Reactions from Advocates and Legal Counsel
Civil rights advocate Martin Luther King III, who has repeatedly urged the White House to address racial disparities in capital punishment, praised Biden’s commutations in a statement shared by the administration:
“President Biden has done what no president before him was willing to do: take meaningful and lasting action not just to acknowledge the death penalty’s racist roots but also to remedy its persistent unfairness.”
Madeline Cohen, an attorney for Norris Holder—who had faced execution for the 1997 killing of a guard during a St. Louis bank robbery—said her client’s case “exemplifies the racial bias and arbitrariness” that Biden cited when commuting sentences. Cohen underscored that Holder, a Black man, was sentenced to death by an all-white jury.
While the decision has been greeted with anger by some and relief by others, it underscores Biden’s deep-seated reservations about capital punishment and sets a dramatic new precedent for how the federal justice system handles its most severe penalties. Yet with Trump taking office imminently, uncertainty looms over whether the United States will see a dramatic resurgence of federal executions—or a continuation of Biden’s more measured approach.