Biden Commutes Death Sentences of 37 federal Inmates
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In a move sure to spark controversy, President Joe Biden has commuted teh death sentences of 37 individuals on federal death row just weeks before the anticipated return of Donald Trump to the White House. Trump, who has indicated he will resume federal executions, swiftly condemned Biden’s decision.
Three individuals, however, were excluded from the commutations: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers; Dylann Roof, who murdered eleven worshippers at a Charleston church in 2015; and Robert Bowers, convicted in the 2018 synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. These men will remain on death row.
Instead of facing execution,nine individuals will now serve life sentences without parole. Their convictions range from murdering fellow inmates to committing murders during bank robberies and killing a prison guard.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these killers, I grieve for the victims of their despicable actions, and I grieve for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in a statement. “But guided by my conscience and my experience, I am more convinced than ever that we need to end the death penalty at the federal level. I cannot in good conscience let a new management resume the executions that I stopped.”
TrumpS team denounced the decision as “nauseating.”
“These people are some of the most brutal killers, and this despicable decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and loved ones,” said Stephen Chun, director of communications for Trump’s transition team.
House Republican Speaker mike Johnson echoed this sentiment, calling the ruling “a slap in the face to the families who have suffered immeasurably at the hands of these animals.”
This move follows Biden’s announcement earlier in December that he pardoned 39 individuals convicted of non-violent crimes and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 others serving lengthy terms—the largest number of pardons and commutations granted in a single day in U.S. history.