President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the sentences of 37 people on federal death row, preempting an expected killing spree by President-elect Donald Trump—who ended his first White House term with a string of executions and campaigned on expanding the death penalty.
Biden's decision empties federal death row with the exception of three people: Dylann Roof, Robert Bowers, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The 37 people whose sentences were commuted will receive life in prison without the possibility of parole. One of the individuals whose sentence was commuted was Billie Jerome Allen, who has spent more than half of his life on federal death row after being convicted at 19 years old of a crime he says he did not commit.
"These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder," said Biden.
The president added that he is "more convinced than ever" that the U.S. must "stop the use of" capital punishment at the federal level.
"In good conscience," Biden said, "I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted."
Chris Geidner, publisher of Law Dork, noted Monday that the commutations "show a different man at the end of his time in elected office than the one who supported greatly expanding the federal criminal justice system during his decades in the Senate."
"It is a record that led to much skepticism when, as a candidate for president in 2020, Biden pledged to eliminate the federal death penalty," Geidner added.
The president's latest use of his clemency power in the waning days of his White House term came after a monthslong pressure campaign by principled opponents of the death penalty, including progressive lawmakers, human rights organizations, religious leaders, and former federal judges.
Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, applauded Biden's move Monday as "a historic and courageous step in addressing the failed death penalty in the United States—bringing us much closer to outlawing the barbaric practice once again."
"By commuting the sentences of 37 individuals on death row, President Biden has taken the most consequential step of any president in our history to address the immoral and unconstitutional harms of capital punishment," said Romero. "President Biden's actions also remove 37 individuals out of harm's way—as President-elect Trump has a proven penchant and track record of conducting rushed executions. In the last six months of his first term, President Trump executed 13 individuals—more than any administration in 120 years."
"The ACLU is proud to join countless advocates and civil and human rights organizations in thanking President Biden for his leadership and commitment to the highest principles of justice and humanity," Romero added.
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) said Monday that Biden's move "marks what could become a turning point in the history of capital punishment in the United States."
"Thirty years ago, then-Sen. Joe Biden championed the death penalty and took personal credit for dramatically expanding the number of crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed," the group said in a statement. "However, over the last three decades, troubling errors have emerged surrounding the use of capital punishment. Scores of wrongful convictions of innocent people, dramatic evidence of racial bias, and sometimes torturous executions have come to define the death penalty."
"There are now 200 people who have been proved innocent and released after being sentenced to death in the United States, some facing execution for decades before their exoneration," EJI added. "For every eight people executed in the last 50 years, one innocent person has been identified and set free. It is a shocking rate of lethal error that would likely be unacceptable in any other area of public safety, public health, or government oversight."
Paul O'Brien, executive director of Amnesty International USA, urged Biden to fully clear federal death row before leaving office.
"While this is a big win for human rights and the 37 men who have had their death sentences commuted, the death penalty is never the answer," said O'Brien. "Close to three-quarters of the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice... It is high time to end this cruel practice everywhere in the United States and beyond."
This story has been updated to include a statement from Amnesty International USA.
