US President Joe Biden has commuted the death sentences of 37 federal inmates, converting their punishments to life imprisonment without parole. This sweeping action, announced on December 23, 2024, comes weeks before Biden leaves office and amid signals that incoming President Donald Trump intends to resume federal executions.
The decision excludes three high-profile inmates: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber; Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black worshippers in Charleston in 2015; and Robert Bowers, responsible for murdering 11 Jewish congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018.
Biden, who imposed a moratorium on federal executions in 2021, emphasized the moral imperative behind his decision. “I condemn these murderers… but in good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions I halted,” he said in a statement.
Critics, including Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung, denounced the move as “abhorrent” and a betrayal of victims’ families. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson echoed these sentiments, calling it a “slap in the face” to grieving families.
Trump, who ended a 17-year pause on federal executions in 2020, oversaw 13 executions in his last six months in office, the highest for any US president in over a century. He has pledged to expand the use of capital punishment for certain crimes, including drug trafficking and killings by migrants.
Rights groups hailed Biden’s decision as historic. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) praised it as “the most consequential step of any president in our history to address the harms of capital punishment.”
Biden’s move aligns with a growing global shift away from the death penalty. While 23 US states have abolished it and six others have moratoriums, the United States remains among the top five countries for executions in 2024, behind nations like Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Biden also sparked controversy earlier this month when he pardoned his son Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges, despite earlier vows to avoid interference. His actions follow a tradition of outgoing presidents issuing clemency, with Biden having also commuted nearly 1,500 pandemic-related sentences earlier this month.
