President Joe Biden is promising to flex his clemency powers again before he leaves office next month, buoying the hopes of capital punishment opponents that he’ll take a big step toward making good on his campaign promise to end the federal death penalty.
Biden could use his authority to grant commutations to convert existing federal death sentences into life in prison. That would deal a serious blow to Trump’s plan to bring back — and even broaden — the use of the death penalty when he returns to power.
The Justice Department has quietly recommended that Biden grant commutations to most of the 40 people on death row, according to a person familiar with the discussions not authorized to discuss them publicly. The recommendation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is also on the verge of publishing the findings of a long-running internal review of the lethal injection protocol that the Trump administration adopted in 2019. That protocol uses a fatal dose of a single sedative drug, pentobarbital, to put prisoners to death.
Many experts and critics of the death penalty have said the method, adopted due to shortages of other drugs used in executions, can cause extreme pain during a prisoner’s final minutes. And anti-death penalty activists say the DOJ’s forthcoming report may bolster the case for clemency.
“We hope the review will find that the problems with lethal injection are one additional reason as to why President Biden should grant clemency to death row prisoners,” said Ruth Friedman, who oversees death penalty work for the federal defenders nationwide.
The White House has been mum on the president’s plans for clemency around the death penalty, but anti-death penalty activists say their talks with the administration have been ramping up in recent weeks.
In non-capital cases, Biden has already begun to deploy his clemency power aggressively — commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people earlier this month, not to mention his controversial pardon of his own son. And the White House has vowed that more clemency actions are coming before Biden leaves office.
“I think the problems related to the [execution] protocol, along with all the other problems systemic to the federal death penalty, are reasons President Biden could use to commute all the federal death sentences,” said Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group that studies capital punishment.
If Biden went that far, he would stymie Trump’s ability to immediately resume federal executions, which have been on hold under Biden. During the first Trump administration, officials ordered a flurry of executions, and the president-elect has signaled he wants to not only pick up where he left off, but even expand the use of the death penalty during his second term.
Biden’s power is limited to the 40 men on the federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana. If he grants sweeping clemency to those prisoners, one big question is whether he will commute all 40 sentences to life in prison, or whether he’ll leave death sentences in place for a handful of notorious criminals.
So many murderers, so many terrorists would be granted clemency under Bidens plan. Sad truly sad he would do this and let those killers escape justice.
Biden could use his authority to grant commutations to convert existing federal death sentences into life in prison. That would deal a serious blow to Trump’s plan to bring back — and even broaden — the use of the death penalty when he returns to power.
The Justice Department has quietly recommended that Biden grant commutations to most of the 40 people on death row, according to a person familiar with the discussions not authorized to discuss them publicly. The recommendation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is also on the verge of publishing the findings of a long-running internal review of the lethal injection protocol that the Trump administration adopted in 2019. That protocol uses a fatal dose of a single sedative drug, pentobarbital, to put prisoners to death.
Many experts and critics of the death penalty have said the method, adopted due to shortages of other drugs used in executions, can cause extreme pain during a prisoner’s final minutes. And anti-death penalty activists say the DOJ’s forthcoming report may bolster the case for clemency.
“We hope the review will find that the problems with lethal injection are one additional reason as to why President Biden should grant clemency to death row prisoners,” said Ruth Friedman, who oversees death penalty work for the federal defenders nationwide.
The White House has been mum on the president’s plans for clemency around the death penalty, but anti-death penalty activists say their talks with the administration have been ramping up in recent weeks.
In non-capital cases, Biden has already begun to deploy his clemency power aggressively — commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people earlier this month, not to mention his controversial pardon of his own son. And the White House has vowed that more clemency actions are coming before Biden leaves office.
“I think the problems related to the [execution] protocol, along with all the other problems systemic to the federal death penalty, are reasons President Biden could use to commute all the federal death sentences,” said Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group that studies capital punishment.
If Biden went that far, he would stymie Trump’s ability to immediately resume federal executions, which have been on hold under Biden. During the first Trump administration, officials ordered a flurry of executions, and the president-elect has signaled he wants to not only pick up where he left off, but even expand the use of the death penalty during his second term.
The fate of 40 prisoners
The vast majority of the nearly 2,200 prisoners currently under sentence of death in the U.S. were convicted in state courts. Biden has no power to stop executions of those inmates, but governors in California and Pennsylvania have imposed moratoriums that have put executions on hold for about one-third of the nation’s death row population.Biden’s power is limited to the 40 men on the federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana. If he grants sweeping clemency to those prisoners, one big question is whether he will commute all 40 sentences to life in prison, or whether he’ll leave death sentences in place for a handful of notorious criminals.
So many murderers, so many terrorists would be granted clemency under Bidens plan. Sad truly sad he would do this and let those killers escape justice.
