President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the sentences of 37 people on federal death row, reclassifying sentences of all but three men to life without parole. This follows months of activists calling on Joe Biden to commute all federal death sentences.
The three remaining on death row were convicted for mass shootings: Robert Bowers who killed 11 Jewish worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, Dylann Roof for the 2015 shooting that killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, for the 2013 bombing at the Boston Marathon that killed three people and injured hundreds.
Those whose sentences were commuted will be sent to a maximum security prison where they will spend the rest of their lives in what death penalty opponents call “death by incarceration.” Those against the death penalty have expressed conflicting feelings; as Biden leaving three men on death row is inconsistent with his statement that “I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”
“We are very grateful for what he did, but we need to finish the job,” said Abe Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, in a press conference on Monday. “Every person left on the federal and military death row will be handed over to Donald Trump for execution.”
During his presidential campaign, Biden pledged to end the death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states who still sanction executions to do the same. Biden’s act of leaving three people on death row is contrary to what half of Americans believe, which is that the death penalty is applied unfairly. Following Biden’s announcement that he would not be running for reelection, more than 400 organizations called on him to commute those on death row and dismantle the death penalty.
The stakes of these commutations were raised as Donald Trump will once again assumes the presidency. During his time in office, Trump approved the executions of 13 people over three months following a 17-year hiatus of the federal death penalty. The last three executions took place just five days before Joe Biden’s inauguration as president. As a Propublica report stated: “In its hurry to use its final days in power to execute federal prisoners, the administration of President Donald Trump has trampled over an array of barriers, both legal and practical, according to court records that have not been previously reported.”
Despite the crimes committed by the three men remaining on federal death row, advocates say that by commuting some sentences and leaving others, Biden is playing judge and promoting the idea that it is acceptable to use the death penalty for “the worst of the worst.”
The Reverend Jeff Hood, an anti-death penalty activist who has counseled many people on death row, said that he is concerned that “now every state is going to have the opportunity to define their worst of the worst and feel comfortable with continuing executions.”
Hood said, “I’m disgusted, I feel like we have a president who promised to lead the way and to push for the abolition of the death penalty, but here we are in the last hours of his presidency, and I feel like we’ve been tricked. We’ve been told the worst of the worst are still eligible for execution, we’re still going to promote that, which I believe sets our movement back years.”
In the press conference, Reverend Sharon Risher, chair of the board of Death Penalty Action and daughter of a woman killed in the mass shooting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, said that people often forget the human impact of the death penalty on the incarcerated .
As someone who has lost family to someone who was given a death sentence, Risher has preached forgiveness and called for an end to the death penalty. She said that when someone ends up on death row, their family members are left to be hostages for the years that their loved one is there, and relives that pain every time an appeal comes up.
“I can’t even begin to express everything I am feeling right now,” said Lisa Brown, mother of Christopher Vialva, who was executed during Trump’s 2020 execution spree. “From this side of the issue, the family members of the three men who are still there, their pain continues. I pray that [Biden] rethinks this and does not look at it with a bias.”
Vivalva was held on death row for two decades, as are many who are sentenced to death. She recalled visiting him on the federal death row and said that every time something happened in his case, it just opened the wound all over again.
Others weren’t so lucky as to get visits. Bethany Bourgeois George wasn’t allowed to talk to her father, Alfred Bourgeois, who was also executed during Trump’s rush to kill in 2020, during his 18 years incarcerated. When he was executed by lethal injection, it took 28 minutes for him to die.
“It haunts me every day of my life,” Bourgeois George said.
In the month following his death, Bourgeois George said that evidence pointed to her father’s innocence. The death penalty is known to execute innocent people — there have been 200 exonerations of innocent people from death row, and some people have been pardoned posthumously. Bourgeois George is advocating for Biden to grant a posthumous pardon to her father.
Anti-death penalty advocates say that Biden still has time to commute the death sentences of the remaining people on federal death row. They are urging him to do so before his time in office ends and Trump takes over, fearing he would resume executions.
“While I am grateful for President Biden’s decision to commute most of the federal death sentences, I must stress that this is not enough for families like mine,” Bourgeois George said.