At left, President Joe Biden during the pardoning of the turkeys at the White House, November 20, 2023 in Washington, D.C., and at right, a bell used in Delaware to toll for death row inmates prior to the death penalty being abolished in that state is displayed as death penalty opponents gather on the steps of the state capitol building in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday November 18, 2024.
© Jack Gruber/ USA TODAY / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images + © Mickey Welsh / Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
(Washington, DC) – President Biden has announced he’s commuting the death sentences of 37 people. That means just three people remain on federal death row — Robert Bowers, who killed eleven people in the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018, Dylann Roof, who killed nine at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015 and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the 2013 Boston marathon bombers.
Biden says while he condemns the murders committed by the convicts, he cannot in good conscience advocate for the death penalty at the federal level. The Biden-Harris White House had already imposed a moratorium on executions. But Biden says he can’t allow a future administration to resume the since-halted executions.
Reaction is coming in from officials, such as NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. He called it “the moral thing to do.” Meanwhile, alleged killer Luigi Mangione was just hit with federal charges in New York City, which means he’s at the least eligible for the dealt penalty. He stands accused in the December 4 murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
