On Monday, December 23, President Joe Biden pardoned 37 of the 40 men currently held on federal death row. The presidential action marks a historic move against capital punishment – a policy Biden opposes.
“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. “I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.” All 37 pardoned men will remain in prison for life without parole.
Biden only left three men remaining on death row: Robert Bowers, who was convicted of a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018; Dylan Roof, who was sentenced for a mass shooting at a Black church in Charleston in 2015; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who carried out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
In 2021, the Biden administration passed a moratorium on federal executions and issued several reviews into policy changes made under the previous administration. In the final months of Trump’s first term, the Department of Justice oversaw the first federal executions in 20 years and adopted a new lethal injection protocol. Under Trump, 13 people were executed – the most under any sitting President.
In his statement, Biden noted that part of his decision to pardon nearly every man on federal death row comes amid concerns that the incoming Trump administration will resume executions. The President-elect seemed to confirm these concerns when he addressed Biden’s pardons on his social media app, Truth Social, on Tuesday, December 24.
“As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters,” Trump wrote.
As the second Catholic President of the United States – following John F. Kennedy – Biden faced significant pressure from religious organizations around the world to take more action toward ending the death penalty. Even Pope Francis urged the President to commute death row sentences, holding a special prayer on December 8 for “the prisoners in the United States who are on death row.”
The pardoning of the death row inmates comes one month after Biden pardoned 39 people convicted of nonviolent crimes and commuted the sentences of 1,500 people who were placed in home confinement during the pandemic.
