WASHINGTON — On Monday, President Joe Biden made a historic move by commuting the sentences of all but three of the 40 people on federal death row. This decision was made in line with Biden’s long-standing opposition to capital punishment. By taking this action, Biden also prevents the incoming Trump administration from carrying out the executions of these convicts.
The previous Trump administration had carried out 13 executions of death-row inmates, setting a record for a single presidential term. However, the 37 men who were spared from execution will now spend the rest of their lives in prison without the possibility of parole. These men had been on death row for over a decade, awaiting their sentence.
In a statement accompanying the announcement, Biden said, “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.” He also added, “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.”
Among the three men who were excluded from the list are Thomas Steven Sanders of Louisiana, who was found guilty of kidnapping and killing a 12-year-old girl, and a California kidnapping-and-serial-killing duo, Jurijus Kadamovas and Iouri Mikhel, who were sentenced to death for the killings of five people, including a pregnant woman. These men had attempted to get ransom from their victims but ended up killing them instead.
The excluded group also includes three men convicted for crimes that Biden described as “terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.” This group is headlined by Dylann Roof, who in 2015 killed nine members of a historically Black South Carolina church in an attempt to spark a race war. In his sentencing, prosecutors quoted Roof’s prison diary, in which he wrote, “I am not sorry. I have not shed a tear for the innocent people I killed.” He went on to espouse racist beliefs and expressed self-pity for himself.
Also excluded were Robert Bowers, convicted over the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history, the 2018 shooting of 11 members of Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, and 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Tsarnaev had stated during interrogation that he and his older brother were planning another attack in central New York City.
Biden had announced a moratorium on federal executions soon after taking office in 2021. This decision was followed by his announcement in December of bestowing the largest-ever act of clemency in a single day by an American president. This affected approximately 1,500 people who had been placed in home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the same month, Biden also announced his highest-profile pardon of all, that of his son Hunter, on federal gun and tax charges. This decision sparked outrage as Biden had maintained throughout his presidency that he would not pardon his son. In his statement, he said he believed his son had been “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.”
Members of Biden’s party largely applauded Monday’s commutations. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 of the 50 American states, as well as in Washington, D.C., the capital. Virginia Democratic Representative Bobby Scott said in a statement, “I have long advocated for reforms to make our justice system more fair and effective, and that includes ending the use of the death penalty, which has not been shown to reduce crime. I applaud President Biden for commuting these sentences to life sentences without the possibility of parole.”
However, some of Trump’s supporters openly disagreed. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote on social media platform X, “When given the choice between law-abiding Americans or criminals, Joe Biden and Democrats choose criminals every time.” Hardline Republican Representative Chip Roy called the president’s decision unconscionable and accused him of abusing his pardon power.
The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union described Biden’s decision as “the most consequential step of any president in our history to address the immoral and unconstitutional harms of capital punishment.” Anthony D. Romero said in a statement, “With a stroke of his pen, the President locks in his
