“President Biden on Monday commuted the sentences of almost all prisoners on federal death row, preserving the lives of 37 men one month before the return to the presidency of Donald Trump, who has promised to resume federal executions,” reports The New York Times this December 23.
The prisoners concerned “will serve a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, specifies the newspaper. Only three men, all guilty of historic mass murders, will remain on federal death row.” There are also more than 2,000 prisoners on death row at the state level, 27 of whom still have the death penalty (although executions are concentrated in a few of them).
The newspaper recalls that the abolition of the death penalty, as far as the federal authorities are concerned, was among the campaign themes of the Democratic president. If he failed to pass it in Congress, “he had the Justice Department impose a moratorium on federal executions.”
Conversely, “during his first term, Donald Trump resumed federal executions after almost twenty years of interruption; thirteen took place, all in the last six months of his presidency.” He was in favor of an extension of the death penalty, without specifying in which cases.
A president who varied a lot on the subject
If Joe Biden emphasized that these sentence commutations corresponded to principles – reserving capital punishment only for cases of “terrorism and mass murders of a hateful nature” –, The Washington Post recalls that he has long been a fervent defender of the death penalty. The action of his government in this matter has been “not very coherent”, according to the newspaper, as federal prosecutors again obtained a death sentence for the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter who shot and killed 11 people.
Many opponents of capital punishment had called on the president to make this gesture, including Pope Francis with whom he spoke by telephone last week. Joe Biden is criticized, notes The Washington Post, by those who would like to see him use more of his power of pardon, a prerogative traditionally used at the end of his mandate.
The outgoing president still commuted the sentences of 1,500 people placed under house arrest, a record number in a single day. He had previously pardoned his son Hunter Biden, convicted of gun possession and tax evasion; a gesture which had earned him numerous criticisms.
