Biden offers 37 of the 40 inmates sentenced to prison so Trump can't have them executed.

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden announced Monday that he will commute the sentences of 37 of 40 people on the federal death row, commuting their sentences to life in prison just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, a staunch proponent of expanding the death penalty, takes office.

This measure spares the lives of people convicted of murder, including the killing of police and military officers, people on state land and those involved in dangerous bank robberies or drug deals, as well as the killing of guards or prisoners in government facilities.

It means that only three prisoners are still facing execution. They are Dylann Roof, who killed nine black members of the Mother Emanuel AME Church in 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Robert Bowers of the Boston Marathon in 2013, who shot and killed 11 brothers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. , the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history.

“I am dedicated to my work in reducing violent crime and ensuring that justice is fair and effective,” Biden said in a statement. “Today, I am changing the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on the government's death row to life sentences without parole. This change is consistent with the commitment my administration has made to state killings, in cases other than terrorism and hate killings.”

The Biden administration in 2021 announced a moratorium on federal capital punishment to read the policies used, which stopped the killings during the Biden era. But Biden has actually promised to continue on this issue in the past, pledging to end killings outside the dens of terrorism and hate-fueled mass killings.

When he ran for president in 2020, Biden's campaign website said he would “work to pass legislation that would abolish the death penalty at the federal level, and encourage states to follow the federal government's example.”

Similar language did not appear on Biden's re-election website before he left the presidential race in July.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these killers, I sympathize with the victims of their heinous acts, and I grieve for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in a statement. “But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vice president, and now president, I am more convinced than ever that we must end the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”

He took the reins from Trump, saying, “In good conscience, I can't stand back and allow the new administration to re-enact the sentences I put in place.”

Indeed, Trump, who takes office on January 20, has repeatedly spoken of increasing the number of people killed. In his speech announcing his 2024 campaign, Trump called for those “caught selling drugs to receive the death penalty for their evil deeds.” He later promised to kill drug traffickers and people and even praised China's harsh treatment of drug dealers. During his first term as president, Trump also advocated the death penalty for drug dealers.

There have been 13 murders during Trump's first term, more than any president in modern history, and some may have happened quickly enough to contribute to the spread of the coronavirus at the death center in Indiana.

That was the first state execution since 2003. The last three occurred after Election Day in November 2020 but before Trump left office the following January, marking the first time inmates have been executed by a crippled president since Grover Cleveland in 1889.

Biden has faced recent pressure from advocacy groups urging him to act to make it harder for Trump to expand the use of the death penalty for federal prisoners. The president's announcement also comes less than two weeks after he commuted the sentences of about 1,500 39 people who were released from prison and placed under house arrest during the COVID-19 crisis, as well as 39 others convicted of non-violent crimes, the largest single-day move. of compassion in modern history.

The announcement also followed a post-election amnesty in which Biden granted his son Hunter federal gun and tax charges after long saying he would not release them, which caused an uproar in Washington. The pardon also raised questions about whether he will issue pardons to administration officials and other White House associates who worry they could be unfairly targeted by Trump's second administration.

Speculation that Biden could commute the state's death sentences grew last week after the White House announced that he plans to visit Italy on the final trip of his presidency next month. Biden, a devout Catholic, will meet with Pope Francis, who recently called for prayers for American death row prisoners in the hope that their sentences will be commuted.

Martin Luther King III, who has publicly urged Biden to reform the death penalty, said in a statement released by the White House that the president “has done what no president before him was willing to do: to take meaningful and lasting action not only to acknowledge the racist roots of the death penalty but also to correct its continuing injustice.” “

Donnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose partner was killed by one of the men whose death sentence was commuted, said the execution of “the man who killed my fellow officer and my best friend would not bring me peace.”

“The president did the right thing here,” Oliverio said in a statement released by the White House, “and it's consistent with the faith that he and I share.”

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Weissert reported from West Palm Beach, Florida.