Biden commutes dozens of death row sentences to life without parole
The sentences will be reclassified to life without the possibility of parole, the White House said. The move applies to 37 of the 40 federal inmates on death row.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced Monday that he is commuting the death sentences of 37 inmates, leaving only three people on death row in federal prisons.
The commuted sentences will be reclassified to life sentences without the possibility of parole, according to the White House.
"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 in a statement. "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.
“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 added in his statement. “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
The three men who remain on federal death row are Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people in the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018; Dylann Roof, who killed nine people in a shooting at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers in 2013.
Rating: 5