Pressure on Biden to Commute All Federal Death Sentences

No president has ever issued a mass commutation of federal death sentences, but that's exactly what advocates are asking of President Biden in his final days in office. Several letters asking Biden to commute the sentences of all 40 people on federal death row to life in prison without parole were released to the public on Monday, per the Washington Post. Signed by current and former prosecutors, police chiefs, attorneys general, and prison officials, as well as family members of murder victims, civil rights advocates, and religious and business leaders, the letters paint the death penalty as arbitrary, unfair, and plagued by racial bias.

Some notorious figures on federal death row include Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof, and Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers. But there are also lesser-known inmates, including a man convicted of robbing a bank with an accomplice who killed a guard, per the Post. Lawyers argue their clients received poor legal counsel or encountered racial bias and that victims' family members oppose execution. One letter signed by 134 civil and human rights organizations refers to "devastating issues endemic to capital punishment like racial bias, ineffective legal assistance, [and] unreliable forensic evidence." But there aren't just letters. Pope Francis called on Catholics to think of death row inmates in the US "and ask the Lord for the grace to save them from death" on Sunday, per Vatican News.

There've been no federal executions under Biden, a rosary-carrying Catholic who campaigned to abolish the practice. Still, the Justice Department continues to push for the death penalty for certain suspects. Some of those demanding Biden empty federal death row note the 40 individuals have a poor outlook under President-elect Trump, whose first administration carried out 13 federal executions in its final six months. According to Rolling Stone, Trump has told advisers of "his desire for death sentences carried out by group executions, hanging, and firing squads." Biden is said to be listening closely to the arguments, though no decision has been made, per the Post. (More President Biden stories.)