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death penalty information center
Biden's Hands 'Will Be Bloody' If He Lets Trump Inherit Death Row Cases, Critics Warn
"President Biden came into office committing to abolishing the federal death penalty because of its fundamental flaws. Commuting the federal row is the way he can honor that commitment," said one advocate.
Dec 03, 2024
For weeks, President Joe Biden has faced calls to use his clemency powers to save the lives of federal inmates on death row ahead of a transfer of power to President-elect Donald Trump, who has said he will expand the use of the death penalty.
Biden's inaction on the issue has drawn increased scrutiny following his pardon of his own son, Hunter Biden, clearing the younger Biden of wrongdoing in any federal crimes he committed or may have committed in the last 11 years.
Presidents have broad authority under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution to grant pardons and reprieves for federal crimes. Biden recently pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys as part of an annual tradition to highlight these constitutional powers, but he has not issued commutations for the 40 incarcerated men on federal death row. (He did, however, order a moratorium on carrying out federal death sentences in 2021).
"If Biden does not act, there is little doubt that Trump will aggressively schedule executions in his next term. Their blood will primarily be on Trump's hands, but, if Biden does not act to prevent it, his hands will be bloody too," wrote Matt Bruenig, president of the People's Policy Project think tank, reacting to the news of Hunter Biden's pardon.
"The death penalty is a morally-bankrupt and inescapably racist institution" —Yasmin Cader, ACLU deputy legal director
The pardoning of Hunter Biden, who was awaiting sentencing in two federal cases, also prompted scrutiny around pardon actions Biden could take that are not just focused on death row.
"This," wrote Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) in response to a post on X that contrasted Hunter Biden's pardon with the fact that tens of thousands of people are in federal custody for drug offenses.
In 2020, Biden pledged to work to abolish the federal death penalty but, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, "there has been little evidence of anything done in furtherance of this promise."
Pressure to issue clemency was building prior to the announcement of Hunter Biden's pardon.
On November 20, over 60 members of Congress sent a letter to Biden, encouraging him to use his "clemency powers to help broad classes of people and cases, including the elderly and chronically ill, those on death row, people with unjustified sentencing disparities, and women who were punished for defending themselves against their abusers."
During a press conference in November that featured House Democrats and anti-death penalty advocates, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) said that "those on death row who are at risk of barbaric and inhumane murder at the hands of the Trump administration can have their death sentence commuted and be resentenced to a prison term," according to Oklahoma Voice.
"We're here today to ask him to take another step in that direction and to demonstrate, once again, a very positive consequence of his having been elected our 46th president, and to carry out his clemency powers in a very positive way," Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said.
Meanwhile, the ACLU has also urged Biden to use the lame duck session to commute federal death sentences—pointing out that Trump has vowed to expand the death penalty, including to non-homicide crimes such as drug-related offenses.
"The death penalty is a morally-bankrupt and inescapably racist institution. President Biden came into office committing to abolishing the federal death penalty because of its fundamental flaws. Commuting the federal row is the way he can honor that commitment, and prevent irreversible miscarriages of justice," said Yasmin Cader, ACLU deputy legal director and the director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality.
While Biden so far has granted far fewer pardon and commutation petitions compared to former President Barack Obama, according to the Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney, he did in 2022 grant full and unconditional pardons to all U.S. citizens convicted of simple federal marijuana possession—a move that was cheered by advocates.
"President Joe Biden can—and must—act now to finish the death penalty reform work his administration began in 2020," the ACLU said last month. "He must commute the sentences of all people on federal death row to stymie Trump’s plans and to redress the racial injustice inherent to capital punishment."
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After Latest US Execution, Progressives Say 'Abolish the Death Penalty'
"The use of the death penalty in the United States is one of the ugliest stains on our broken criminal justice system," said Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
Sep 25, 2024
Amid a wave of executions in Republican-led states—including Tuesday's lethal injection of Marcellus Williams in Missouri—progressive U.S. lawmakers and groups renewed calls to "abolish the death penalty."
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) were among those who took to social media to demand an end to capital punishment following Williams' execution.
"The use of the death penalty in the United States is one of the ugliest stains on our broken criminal justice system," said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). "It is disproportionately imposed against poor people and people of color. We must abolish it once and for all."
Williams, 55, was killed by the state of Missouri via lethal injection—a method known for botched executions—despite serious doubts about his guilt. The office that prosecuted him sought to have his murder conviction overturned and members of the victim's family pleaded for clemency.
"Sometimes injustice is so glaring that it leaves us struggling to comprehend how such events could happen in the first place," Bush said in a statement released after Williams' execution.
The congresswoman continued:
The deadly decision to execute Williams came despite urgent pleas from Missourians and people all across the country... who called for clemency. Gov. Mike Parson didn't just ignore these pleas and end Williams' life, he demonstrated how the death penalty is wielded without regard for innocence, compassion, equity, or humanity. He showed us how the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" can be applied selectively, depending on who stands accused and who stands in power.
"The state of Missouri and our nation's legal system failed Marcellus Williams, and as long as we uphold the death penalty, we continue to perpetuate this depravity—where an innocent person can be killed in the name of justice," Bush stressed. "We have a moral imperative to abolish this racist and inhumane practice, and to work towards building a just legal system that values humanity and compassion over criminalization and violence."
"Rest in power, Marcellus Williams," she added.
Williams wasn't the only one executed on Tuesday. Travis Mullis—a 38-year-old autistic man who murdered his infant son—was killed by lethal injection in Texas after waiving his right to appeal.
Last week, South Carolina executed Freddie Owens by lethal injection after Republican state Attorney General Alan Wilson brushed off a key prosecution witness' bombshell claim that the convicted man did not commit the murder for which his life was taken.
Although the number of U.S. executions has been steadily decreasing from 85 in 2000 to 24 last year, there is currently a surge in state killings, with five more people set to be put to death in three states by October 17.
On Thursday, Alabama is scheduled to kill Alan Eugene Miller using nitrogen gas, despite the inmate suffering severe mental illness. Miller was meant to be put to death in 2022; however, prison staff could not find a vein in which to inject the lethal cocktail and his execution was postponed.
That same day, Emmanuel Antonio Littlejohn is set to be executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma, even after the state's Pardon and Parole Board voted to recommend clemency.
According to a 2014 study, over 4% of people on U.S. death rows did not commit the crime for which they were condemned. The Death Penalty Information Center found that since 1973, at least 200 people who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the U.S. have been exonerated.
"The only way to eliminate the possibility of executing an innocent person is to do away with the death penalty altogether," the advocacy group Human Rights First said Wednesday.
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GOP Killing Spree Continues as Missouri Executes Marcellus Williams
"We must abolish this flawed, racist, inhumane practice once and for all," Congresswoman Cori Bush said of the death penalty.
Sep 24, 2024
Update: The state of Missouri executed Marcellus Williams by lethal injection Monday evening over the objections of his prosecutor and the murder victim's relatives, The Associated Pressreported.
Earlier:
Advocates for a man set to be executed by the state of Missouri on Tuesday lodged desperate pleas for Republican Gov. Mike Parson to change course and grant an eleventh-hour reprieve in a case with such serious red flags that even the office that prosecuted the defendant wants his conviction overturned.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay for Williams, one day after both Parson and the Missouri Supreme Court said they would not halt Williams' killing by lethal injection—a method associated with botched executions—barring a last-minute change of heart by the governor.
"We wish we had better news. But as of now, Marcellus Williams is still scheduled to be executed by Missouri tonight at 6:00 pm Central for a crime he is totally innocent of," the Innocence Project—which works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people—said in a social media post.
Williams, who is Black, was convicted in 2001 of murdering Felicia Gayle, a white woman, during a 1998 robbery. DNA found on the knife used to kill Gayle matched another man. However, Williams was convicted by a nearly all-white jury after St. Louis County prosecutors were permitted to preemptively strike half a dozen Black prospective jurors from service.
Earlier this year, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, a Democrat running for Congress, asked to vacate Williams' conviction, citing "clear and convincing evidence" of his innocence including evidence contamination and the revelation that at least one potential juror was excluded because he was Black.
However, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ruled against stopping the execution, asserting that Williams' lawyers "failed to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence Williams' actual innocence or constitutional error at the original criminal trial that undermines the confidence in the judgment of the original criminal trial."
Following the ruling, Parson said that Williams "has exhausted due process and every judicial avenue, including over 15 hearings attempting to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction."
Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.)—a death penalty opponent who was recently defeated by Bell in their district's Democratic House primary—joined civil and human rights defenders in appealing to Parson to reconsider.
"A system that rules that an innocent man can be executed by the hands of the state is anything but just," Bush said on social media. "Gov. Parson must reverse his disgraceful decision not to stop this inhumane execution and act now to save Marcellus Williams' life."
As NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund president and director-counsel Janai Nelson noted:
There is a groundswell of voices calling for either commutation or a temporary reprieve. As you know, these voices include the family of Felicia Gayle... Gayle's family had communicated their "desire that the death penalty not be carried out in this case." Mr. Williams has presented compelling evidence that he is innocent of Ms. Gayle's murder. The perpetrator of this horrific crime left behind significant forensic evidence, including fingerprints, footprints, hair, and trace DNA on the murder weapon. None of this evidence matches Mr. Williams. The St. Louis County prosecuting attorney has recognized that Mr. Williams' capital trial was marred by constitutional errors and the prosecution's presentation of unreliable evidence, which undermine confidence in the judgment against him.
"I implore you to use your gubernatorial authority to grant Mr. Williams clemency, or, at a minimum, grant a reprieve until the underlying conviction can be investigated further and applicable law can be determined," Nelson said.
As Amherst College law professor Austin Sarat noted in Slate Monday, the United States is currently "witnessing the worst execution spree in three decades."
Republican-led states are set to carry out four state-sanctioned killings in addition to last week's lethal injection of Freddie Owens in South Carolina, despite the key prosecution witness' bombshell claim that the convicted man did not commit the murder for which he was put to death.
"This week's execution spree should unsettle all Americans, whether or not they support the death penalty," Sarat wrote. "It will offer further reasons for why capital punishment should be abolished everywhere in this country."
As the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) notes on its website, capital punishment "carries the inherent risk of executing an innocent person."
"Since 1973, at least 200 people who had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the U.S. have been exonerated," the group says, adding that it is "clear that innocent defendants will be convicted and sentenced to death with some regularity as long as the death penalty exists."
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