Joe Biden made history on Monday and commuted the sentence of nearly everyone on federal death row to life in prison without parole, sparing 37 people from the execution chamber.
Biden, whose (in)famous 1994 crime bill expanded the list of crimes eligible for a death sentence, framed the decision as part of his wider commitment to criminal justice reform.
“I’ve dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system,” Biden said in a statement. “Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole. These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”
The commutation decision falls short of Biden’s original, and unprecedented, broader 2020 campaign promise to seek to entirely eliminate federal capital punishment, and Monday’s announcement leaves in place three death sentences for some of the most notorious killers in recent U.S. history.
Those with remaining sentences are Robert D. Bowers, 52, who was sentenced in 2023 for killing 11 people during the Three of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018; Dylann Roof, 30, who was sentenced in 2017 for killing nine people during a white-supremacist motivated mass shooting in South Carolina; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 31, who was sentenced in 2015 for carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing.
People tied to these killings had a mix of reactions to Biden’s announcement.
Reverend Sharon Risher, an anti-capital punishment activist, whose mother, Ethel Lance, and cousins Susie and Tywanza Sanders were among those Roof killed, has long opposed a death sentence on religious grounds.
“In my heart, as my mother’s child, I wanted him to be dead like her,” she previously toldThe Independent. “Going back to my Christian faith, I knew that I didn’t want that. I realised that even though he had done this horrific thing, my faith tells me that God is a God of restoration and redemption.”
The Pope was among those who called on Biden to commute the sentences of those on death row before leaving office.
Others argued that an execution was a fitting remedy for hate-fueled mass killer.
“This was a crime against a race of people,” Michael Graham, whose sister, Cynthia Hurd, was killed in the Charleston shooting, told The Associated Press. “It didn’t matter who was there, only that they were Black.”
The remaining death sentence for Tsarnaev prompted similarly divisive reactions.
“If he lets him off, I am going to be livid,” Carol Downing, whose family members were injured in the Boston Bombing, told WBUR of learning Biden was considering the commutations. “I was very happy to see that he had not pardoned him.”
Others, like congressman Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, who opposes the death penalty, argued Biden should’ve done more.
“There is no action more powerful or righteous than sparing someone’s life,” she said in a statement. “The death penalty is a racist, flawed, and fundamentally unjust punishment that has no place in any society.”
The Biden administration did more than just leave some death sentences in place; they’ve also actively sought new death sentences in hate- and terror-related killings.
The administration, which put a moratorium on federal executions, pursued a death sentence in the case of Islamic State attacker Sayfullo Saipov, for a 2017 attack in New York that killed eight people. A court ultimately sentenced Saipov to life in prison.
The Biden administration Justice Department in 2022 also successfully appealed to the Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence against Tsarnaev, after a lower court overturned it two years prior.
In January of 2024, the DOJ announced it would seek the first new federal capital case of the Biden years against Payton Gendron, who shot and killed 10 Black people in a racist attack at a New York grocery store.
Gendron was already convicted on state charges, but federal prosecutors have sought a capital case because New York does not have a death penalty.
Another set of Biden-influenced capital cases may play out even after the president leaves office.
This summer, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revoked a plea deal between military prosecutors and three men accused of plotting the 9/11 terror attacks.
A military judge has since ruled that the defense chief acted too late, but military prosecutors have appealed to a Pentagon panel for review, with briefing expected next year.
Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois called on Austin earlier this month to reach a settlement, arguing the military prosecutions at Guantánamo had failed to deliver a satisfying or just result.
“Far too many family members have died waiting for the military commission trial at Guantánamo to start — let alone deliver justice,” he wrote.
As The Independent has reported, evidentiary issues over the CIA’s use of torture on people later moved to Guantánamo have hamstrung potential prosecutions at the secretive island military prison for years.
