This morning President Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 of the 40 people facing execution by the federal government. This historic commutation marks what could become a turning point in the history of capital punishment in the United States.
Thirty years ago, then-Sen. Joe Biden championed the death penalty and took personal credit for dramatically expanding the number of crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed. However, over the last three decades, troubling errors have emerged surrounding the use of capital punishment. Scores of wrongful convictions of innocent people, dramatic evidence of racial bias, and sometimes torturous executions have come to define the death penalty.
There are now 200 people who have been proved innocent and released after being sentenced to death in the United States, some facing execution for decades before their exoneration. For every eight people executed in the last 50 years, one innocent person has been identified and set free. It is a shocking rate of lethal error that would likely be unacceptable in any other area of public safety, public health, or government oversight.
Multiple studies have found evidence of significant racial bias in the administration of the death penalty across the country and the federal death penalty in particular. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump ordered the execution of 13 people on federal death row as the election approached and in his last months in office. Several of those executed presented serious evidence of racial bias in jury selection that the Supreme Court refused to review.
President-elect Trump vowed during the campaign to execute the remaining people on federal death row despite continuing questions about wrongful convictions and biased sentencing.
President Biden’s mass commutation of most death sentences in the federal jurisdiction comes after advocates, religious leaders, and even the Department of Justice recommended that the president intervene. Earlier this month, Pope Francis publicly appealed to President Biden to end his term in office by commuting death sentences, which have long been condemned by Catholic leaders.
Support for the death penalty has dropped dramatically in recent years. Death sentencing rates and executions are at historic lows. Recent polling suggests that only a slight majority of Americans support capital punishment and, for the first time, a majority of Americans between the ages of 18 and 43 oppose the death penalty.
“We do not need to kill people to show that killing is wrong in this country,” said EJI Director Bryan Stevenson. “The death penalty is a torturous, flawed, expensive, and error-filled practice that must be abolished. I commend President Biden for this historic act and hope that governors and state executives follow the president’s lead at a time when many of our courts are abandoning their role to ensure fairness and reliability in criminal cases. Leadership by elected officials will be more critical than ever.”