The measure spares the lives of people convicted of murders, including murders of police and military, people involved in bank robberies or drug trafficking that resulted in deaths, as well as murders of guards or prisoners in federal facilities.
This Monday, US President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people sentenced to death, less than a month before the return of Donald Trump, who restarted executions at federal level during his term.
“I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals in the corridor [federal] from death to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole”, announced the US president, in a statement.
According to Biden, executions carried out by federal justice cannot be allowed to be resumed by Trump, a declared supporter of the expansion of capital punishment.
The measure spares the lives of people convicted of murders, including murders of police and military personnel, people involved in bank robberies or drug trafficking that resulted in deaths, as well as murders of guards or prisoners in federal facilities.
This means that only three federal inmates still face the death penalty: Dylann Roof, who killed nine black members of a church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015; 2013 Boston Marathon suicide bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who shot and killed 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history.
“I have dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a balanced and effective justice system,” Biden highlighted in the statement.
“These sentence commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions in cases other than terrorism or hate-motivated mass murders,” he explained.
The Biden administration announced, in 2021, a moratorium on federal capital punishment to study the protocols used, which suspended executions during its term.
However, the still US president had promised to go further and end federal executions, including those linked to terrorism and mass murders motivated by hate.
While running for president in 2020, Biden’s campaign website said the candidate would “work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level and encourage states to follow the federal government’s lead.”
However, Biden’s re-election “program”, before withdrawing from the presidential race in July, did not keep his promise.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, I mourn the victims of their despicable acts and I suffer for all the families who suffered unimaginable and irreparable losses”, said the president in the statement released today.
“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 end the use of the death penalty at the federal level.” , he defended.
“In good conscience, I cannot allow a new administration to resume the executions that I interrupted,” he said.
President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on January 20, has frequently spoken of increasing the number of executions.
In the speech in which he announced his candidacy in 2024, Trump called for those who are “caught selling drugs to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts”.
He later promised to execute drug and human traffickers and even praised China’s harsher treatment of drug traffickers.
During his first term as president, Trump had already defended the death penalty for drug traffickers.
During the Trump administration (2017-2021), 13 federal executions were carried out, more than in any administration in modern history, the first since 2003.
The last three took place after Election Day in November 2020, but before Trump left office the following January.
