President Joe Biden is being asked to grant clemency to dozens of federal inmates facing the death penalty before he leaves office and before President-elect Donald Trump, who during his first term resumed federal executions after a two-decade-long pause, is inaugurated in January.
A group including human-rights activists, former corrections officers, and the families of crime victims wrote to the White House calling on Biden, who campaigned against the death penalty in 2020, to use the clemency powers afforded by his office to commute the death sentences of the 40 inmates on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole.
"As your time in office comes to a close, there is an unprecedented need for you to cement your commitment to remedying injustices by exercising executive clemency and commuting the death sentences of those on federal death row," reads one of the letters, which was obtained by The New York Times.
Pope Francis joined the call to commute death penalty sentences, saying in his prayer on Sunday, "It comes to my heart to ask all of you to pray for the prisoners in the United States who are on death row. Let's pray that their sentence would be commuted [or] changed."
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that Biden is "thinking through that process very thoroughly," and will make more decisions regarding clemency "at the end of his term."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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