Joe Biden’s presidency is ending prior to he hoped, however he can nonetheless cement his legacy by undertaking one thing no different president has: the commutation of each federal demise sentence.
In 2020, Biden ran partly on abolishing the federal demise penalty. His marketing campaign web site promised that he would “work to move laws to eradicate the demise penalty on the federal stage, and incentivize states to observe the federal authorities’s instance,” including that death-row prisoners “ought to as a substitute serve life sentences with out probation or parole.” The Democratic Get together platform that 12 months additionally supplied for the abolition of the demise penalty, and shortly after Biden’s inauguration, a White Home spokesperson confirmed that the president was certainly against capital punishment.
However the precise observe of his administration has been blended. In July 2021, Biden’s legal professional basic, Merrick Garland, imposed a moratorium on executions. “The Division of Justice should be sure that everybody within the federal felony justice system is just not solely afforded the rights assured by the Structure and legal guidelines of the US, however can be handled pretty and humanely,” Garland wrote in a memo. “That obligation has particular power in capital instances.” Requested for touch upon Garland’s announcement, a Biden spokesperson mentioned, “Because the president has made clear, he has important issues concerning the demise penalty and the way it’s applied, and he believes the Division of Justice ought to return to its prior observe of not finishing up executions.”
Biden’s administration has not carried out any federal executions, however neither has he instructed Garland to cease pursuing new demise sentences, or to cease defending ongoing capital instances. Biden’s Division of Justice has continued pursuing demise sentences for mass murderers and terrorists, together with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber, and Dylann Roof, the Charleston, South Carolina, church shooter. And Biden has declined to advocate for laws that might eradicate the federal demise penalty. Opponents of the demise penalty have criticized Biden for failing to honor his marketing campaign guarantees regarding capital punishment.
To this point, Biden has approached federal executions in the identical means Barack Obama did: leaving the structure for finishing up capital sentences in place however benevolently neglecting to make use of it. Donald Trump’s instance, nonetheless, demonstrates how simple it’s to renew executions even after a protracted hole. From 2003 to 2020, the federal authorities didn’t perform executions. Then the Trump administration put to demise 13 prisoners in a number of months. Garland’s protection of present federal demise sentences and pursuit of latest ones has laid the groundwork for including new prisoners to federal demise row.
Maybe Biden is hoping to go away abolition as much as his successor. However that, too, can be a mistake. His successor might effectively be Trump, and his vp is unlikely to behave boldly on this space, as she isn’t reliably against capital punishment. In 2004, when Kamala Harris refused as San Francisco district legal professional to hunt a demise sentence for the assassin of a police officer, Democratic politicians skewered her resolution publicly. Then-Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer in addition to then–Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown all referred to as for the demise penalty. The expertise was apparently formative for Harris, who reportedly grew to become far more politically cautious in consequence. Since then, Harris’s place on the demise penalty has shifted a number of instances. Proper now, Harris gained’t make clear whether or not she intends to authorize her DOJ to hunt demise sentences or advance present ones, and the 2024 Democratic platform has been stripped of references to capital punishment. I doubt Harris intends to renew federal executions, however neither does she appear primed to commute each sentence on demise row, or to advocate vigorously for abolition.
So the chance is in Biden’s palms. If he actually does abhor capital punishment as he has claimed, then he has a number of avenues by means of which to behave with the final of his government energy. He might instruct his DOJ to withdraw its pending discover of intent to hunt capital punishment within the 2022 Buffalo, New York, capturing case; rescind a Trump-era letter saying the FDA has no proper to control the distribution of deadly medication; and commute the demise sentences of the roughly 40 prisoners on federal demise row. The president not has to fret concerning the political ramifications of decisive work on capital punishment, and due to this fact has the liberty to behave on his values and save dozens of lives. He must take this chance to maintain his marketing campaign guarantees, and to honor the dignity of human life.
