United States: Biden commutes death sentences of nearly 40 federal prisoners

US President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the death sentences of more than three dozen federal prisoners, ordering previously convicted inmates to serve life sentences rather than be executed by the government.

The White House announced the clemencies on Monday morningstating that the president was “commuting the sentences of 37 people sentenced to death at the federal level.”

“These individuals will have their execution sentences reclassified to life in prison without the possibility of parole,” the White House said.

The White House noted that the order keeps in place the death sentences of three federal prisoners guilty of “terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.” Those sentences apply to Robert Bowers, who committed the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in 2018; Dylann Roof, who in 2015 killed nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the perpetrators of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

The commutations come after major campaigns by Catholic advocates who urged the president to issue broad clemency in the final days of his administration.

Earlier this month, Pope Francis called for the death sentences of American prisoners to be overturned and prayed that “their sentences may be commuted or changed.”

Also this month, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) launched a campaign urging Catholics to contact Biden and ask him to commute federal death sentences, describing the proposal as “an extraordinary opportunity to advance the cause of human dignity.”

Meanwhile, in November, the anti-death penalty group Catholic Mobilizing Network (CMN) similarly urged Biden to commute sentences, and the group pointed to the impending Jubilee Year of 2025 and said it was “appropriate for (Biden) to act on his faith and do what is within his constitutional authority.”

In a statement this MondayNMC Executive Director Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy said Biden’s order “advances the cause of human dignity and underscores the sacred value of every human life.”

“The capital punishment system anywhere leaves behind a trail of suffering in families, in communities and in our social systems,” Murphy said. “In fact, the mere existence of the death penalty is an example of a throwaway culture.”

The group noted that although more than three dozen inmates were saved from execution thanks to the order, the move “places the three remaining men on federal death row… at risk of future execution.”

“While we celebrate the distinctive progress that today’s commutation action brings, we will continue to fervently pray that President Biden’s bold move spurs legislative action that ultimately leads to the abolition of the death penalty at all levels of government throughout the United States,” Murphy said.

Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in CNA.