U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the death sentences of 37 out of 40 federal inmates, a significant move ahead of the expected return of Donald Trump, who oversaw a surge in federal executions during his first term.
With less than a month left in office, Biden had faced growing pressure from death penalty opponents to commute the sentences of those on death row to life imprisonment without parole. The 37 inmates affected by Monday’s decision will now serve life sentences.
The commutation leaves only a small number of high-profile cases still eligible for the federal death penalty, which has been on moratorium under Biden’s administration. This includes individuals convicted of acts of terrorism and hate-driven mass murders.
“These commutations align with the moratorium my Administration has imposed on federal executions, except in cases involving terrorism or mass murder motivated by hate,” Biden said in a statement.
“I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole,” Biden added.
The three inmates who remain on federal death row include Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who murdered nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; and Robert Bowers, responsible for the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, where 11 Jewish worshippers were killed.
Among those who had their sentences commuted were nine individuals convicted of murdering fellow prisoners, four for killings during bank robberies, and one for murdering a prison guard.
“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 said. “But, guided by my conscience and experience, I am more convinced than ever that we must end the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”
Trump’s legacy of expanded death penalty
Biden, who campaigned as an opponent of the death penalty, imposed a federal moratorium on executions after taking office. In stark contrast, during his reelection campaign, Donald Trump advocated for expanding the death penalty to include those accused of killing American citizens, as well as drug and human traffickers.
There had been no federal executions in the U.S. since 2003 until Trump resumed them in July 2020. In the final six months of his presidency, Trump oversaw 13 federal executions by lethal injection, more than any U.S. president in over a century. The last federal execution took place on January 16, 2021, just days before Trump left office.
While the death penalty has been abolished in 23 U.S. states, six others—Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee—have moratoriums in place. In 2024, there have been 25 executions in the U.S., all at the state level.
