“President Biden Commutes Sentences of 37 Federal Death Row Inmates Ahead of Trump’s Presidency”
President Joe Biden announced on Monday that he has commuted the sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates, converting their death sentences to life imprisonment. This decision comes just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, who has been a strong advocate for expanding the use of capital punishment, is set to take office.
The commuted sentences involve individuals convicted of various heinous crimes, including the murders of police and military officers, killings on federal land, as well as deadly bank robberies, drug deals, and attacks on guards or fellow prisoners in federal facilities.
As a result, only three federal inmates remain facing the death penalty: Dylann Roof, who was convicted for the 2015 racially motivated massacre at Charleston’s Mother Emanuel AME Church; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, responsible for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Robert Bowers, who carried out the 2018 mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.
“I’ve spent my career working to reduce violent crime and ensure a fair, effective justice system,” President Biden said in a statement. “Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 out of 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole. These commutations align with the moratorium my administration imposed on federal executions, with exceptions for terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”
In 2021, the Biden administration announced a moratorium on federal capital punishment to review execution protocols, halting federal executions during his presidency. However, Biden had previously pledged to go further, promising to end federal executions entirely, with no exceptions for cases involving terrorism or hate-fueled mass killings.
During his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden’s website stated that he would “work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level and encourage states to follow the federal government’s lead.”
Similar language was absent from President Biden’s reelection website before he exited the presidential race in July.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, mourn for the victims of their heinous crimes, and grieve for the families who have endured unimaginable and irreversible pain,” Biden said in his statement. “But guided by my conscience and my experience—as a public defender, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, vice president, and now president—I am more convinced than ever that we must end the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”
Biden also took a swipe at former President Trump, stating, “In good conscience, I cannot stand by and allow a new administration to resume the executions that I stopped.”
Trump, who will assume office on January 20, has repeatedly expressed support for expanding the use of the death penalty. During his 2024 campaign announcement, he advocated for the death penalty for individuals “caught selling drugs, for their heinous acts.” He also pledged to execute drug and human smugglers, even lauding China’s stricter approach to drug offenders. In his first term, Trump also pushed for the death penalty for drug dealers.
During Donald Trump’s first term, there were 13 federal executions, the most under any president in modern history, and some of these may have been carried out quickly enough to have contributed to the spread of COVID-19 at the federal death row facility in Indiana.
These executions marked the first federal executions since 2003. The final three occurred after Election Day in November 2020 but before Trump left office in January 2021, making it the first time in history that a lame-duck president oversaw federal executions since Grover Cleveland in 1889.
Biden faced mounting pressure from advocacy groups pushing him to act and make it more difficult for Trump to expand the use of capital punishment for federal inmates. His announcement also comes less than two weeks after he commuted the sentences of approximately 1,500 people released from prison and placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as 39 others convicted of nonviolent crimes, marking the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.
The announcement came shortly after President Biden granted a post-election pardon to his son, Hunter, for federal gun and tax charges, despite previously stating he would not issue one. The move sparked controversy in Washington and raised questions about whether Biden might issue broader preemptive pardons for administration officials and allies who could be unfairly targeted by Trump’s second term.
Speculation that Biden might commute federal death sentences grew last week after the White House revealed that he plans to visit Italy on his final foreign trip next month. During the trip, Biden, a practicing Catholic, will meet with Pope Francis, who recently called for prayers for U.S. death row inmates, urging that their sentences be commuted.
Martin Luther King III, who publicly urged Biden to take action on the death sentences, praised the president for “doing what no president before him was willing to do: taking meaningful and lasting action not only to acknowledge the death penalty’s racist roots but also to address its persistent unfairness,” according to a statement released by the White House.
Donnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose partner was killed by one of the men whose death sentence was commuted, shared his perspective, saying that the execution of “the person who killed my police partner and best friend would have brought me no peace.” He added, “The president has done what is right here, and what is consistent with the faith he and I share.”