President Joe Biden said that he would remove 37 people from federal death row to serve life sentences — leaving just three federal inmates waiting to be executed when President-elect Donald Trump takes office next month.
Notably, the president did not commute the sentences of three people involved in crimes including mass shootings or acts of terrorism: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of two brothers responsible for the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon bombings; Dylann Roof, a white nationalist who massacred nine people at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018.
Most of the 37 people whose sentences were commuted on Monday were convicted of less high-profile offenses such as drug-trafficking-related murders or the killing of prison guards or other inmates.
“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,” Biden said in his statement. “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. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
