In one of his final acts as President, Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 out of 40 inmates on federal death row, converting their punishment to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The decision, announced on Monday, aligns with Biden’s long-standing opposition to the death penalty and comes just weeks before he is set to leave office and hand over power to President-elect Donald Trump.
The move effectively halts the federal executions planned for these inmates, despite the Trump administration’s stated intention to resume a rapid pace of capital punishment.
Unlike executive orders, clemency decisions are irreversible by a succeeding president, though federal prosecutors can still pursue the death penalty in new cases.
The inmates spared execution were convicted of heinous crimes, including murder, kidnapping, and other violent acts. Among the most notable are:
- Marcivicci Barnette, who committed a double murder during a carjacking and killed his ex-girlfriend.
- Brandon Basham and Chadrick Fulks, who kidnapped and killed a woman after escaping prison.
- Kaboni Savage, a drug lord responsible for the deaths of 12 people, including six victims of an arson attack targeting a federal informant’s family.
While Biden commuted most federal death row sentences, his decision notably excluded three high-profile cases:
- Robert Bowers, convicted of the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh that killed 11 people.
- Dylann Roof, who murdered nine Black parishioners at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
- Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and injured hundreds.
Biden’s administration cited these exclusions as consistent with his policy to support the death penalty only in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murders.
Biden has repeatedly voiced his moral opposition to the death penalty, calling it “irreversible” and often disproportionately applied.
In a statement, he condemned the crimes committed by the inmates but emphasized his commitment to ending federal executions. “I grieve for the victims of these despicable acts and ache for the families who have suffered unimaginable loss,” Biden said. “However, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
The President had declared a moratorium on federal executions shortly after taking office in 2021. His administration has since faced mounting pressure from anti-death penalty advocates, religious leaders, and some members of Congress to commute federal death sentences before his term ended.
However, the move can also be seen as an affront to justice for the victims of these heinous crimes. Critics argue that life imprisonment without parole is an insufficient deterrent for the most egregious offenses.
Biden’s commutations mark the largest single act of clemency in modern American history, building on his earlier grants of clemency to nearly 1,500 inmates placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic. His actions set a sharp contrast to Trump’s resumption of federal executions during his first term, breaking a nearly 20-year pause.
While Biden’s decision does not affect the nearly 2,200 individuals on state death rows, it represents a significant shift in federal policy. As President-elect Trump prepares to take office, the future of the federal death penalty remains uncertain, but Biden’s irreversible commutations leave a lasting mark on his presidency.