“Joe Biden has just commuted the death sentences of 37 of the worst killers in our country. When you hear what each person did, you won't believe he did this,” the Republican wrote on his Truth Social platform. “It doesn’t make any sense. Relatives and friends (of the victims) are even more devastated. They can't believe what's happening! “, he added.
Donald Trump was reacting to the announcement the day before of his successor and now future predecessor, who decided to commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 sentenced to death by federal justice. This is “the largest number of death sentence commutations by an American president in modern times”, underlined human rights organizations, mobilized for weeks to convince Joe Biden. They feared a wave of executions when Donald Trump returned to the White House on January 20.
Because the Republican is a fervent supporter of the death penalty. During his victorious campaign, Donald Trump called for extending its scope, in particular to immigrants convicted of murdering American citizens or to drug and human traffickers.
2,300 prisoners on death row
The last federal executions took place at the end of the Trump presidency. After 17 years of interruption, 13 convicts were put to death between July 14, 2020 and January 16, 2021, “more than the ten previous administrations combined”, recalled the organizations.
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