President Joe Biden on Monday announced that he is commuting the sentences of 37 out of 40 prisoners currently sitting on the federal government's death row - which will reclassify their sentences to life without the possibility of parole.
The three men who were not spared for "terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder" are: "Robert D. Bowers, 52, who in 2018 gunned down 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh; Dylann Roof, 30, who opened fire on Black parishioners in 2015 at a church in Charleston, SC, killing nine people; and Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 31.
The decision comes weeks before Biden is set to leave office.
"I’ve dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system," Biden said in a statement - before suggesting that the US must abolish the death penalty at the federal level except in cases of terrorism and mass murder.
"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," Biden continued. "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."
Here's a few of those who received commutations (via @stillgray):
Thomas Sanders: Convicted for the horrific murder of 12-year-old Lexis Roberts, whom he shot four times and slit her throat, after killing her mother.
Jorge Avila-Torrez: Killed two young girls, Laura Hobbs (8) and Krystal Tobias (9), and later strangled Amanda Snell (20), a naval officer, in her barracks.
Kaboni Savage: A drug kingpin convicted of orchestrating the murder of six people, including four children, in a firebombing attack aimed at silencing a witness. The deliberate targeting of children and the use of arson to kill increase the severity of his crimes.
Iouri Mikhel: Involved in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of five immigrants despite receiving ransom payments.
Anthony Battle: While serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of his Marine wife, he murdered a prison guard with a hammer.
Lezmond Mitchell: Convicted for the brutal murder of a 63-year-old grandmother and her nine-year-old granddaughter in 2001. He forced the child to watch her grandmother's murder before killing her as well, with extreme cruelty, including mutilation.
Wesley Ira Purkey: Convicted of the violent rape, murder, and dismemberment of a 16-year-old girl, and the murder of an elderly woman.
Dustin Lee Honken: Murdered five people, including two men who were to testify against him and a mother with her two young daughters, to prevent them from testifying.
Daniel Lewis Lee: Part of a white supremacist group, he was convicted of murdering a family of three, including an eight-year-old girl. The method of execution (suffocation with plastic bags and duct tape, followed by disposal in water) adds to the cruelty of the act.
Alfred Bourgeois: Convicted of physically abusing, sexually molesting, and then beating to death his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter.
Thomas Silverstein: Known as "Terrible Tom," he was convicted of multiple murders, including the killing of a correctional officer in 1983. His history of violence while incarcerated, including the murder of inmates and guards, marks him as one of the most dangerous inmates.
Ronell Wilson: Convicted for the execution-style murders of two undercover NYPD detectives during a drug sting operation in 2003.
Richard Matthew Allen: Convicted of the 2017 murders of two teenage girls in Delphi, Indiana, in a crime that shocked the state.
As the Epoch Times notes further, President-elect Donald Trump made it clear during his campaign that he would resume the death penalty and expand its use to include child rapists and illegal immigrants who kill U.S. citizens and law enforcement officers.
Biden’s commutations are final and cannot be overturned.
“In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted,” the president said in his statement.
In July 2020, President Trump’s Justice Department resumed federal executions after a 17-year pause. During the final six months of his first term, Trump oversaw the execution of 13 federal death row prisoners.
After Biden took office, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum in July 2021, imposing a moratorium on all federal executions.
“The Department of Justice must ensure that everyone in the federal criminal justice system is not only afforded the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States, but is also treated fairly and humanely,” Garland said.
“That obligation has special force in capital cases.”
In his statement, Biden said his decision was consistent with the moratorium his Justice Department has imposed on federal executions.
In recent weeks, the president faced increasing pressure from civil rights groups to commute federal death sentences—a campaign promise he made in 2020—before Trump takes office.
“Today, I feel compelled to ask all of you to pray for the inmates on death row in the United States,” the Pope said in his weekly address in early December.
“Let us pray that their sentences may be commuted or changed. Let us think of these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord for the grace to save them from death.”
