In his final weeks in office, President Joe Biden’s controversial decisions on clemency are raising questions about whether he’s undermining his own legacy. Following the election, Biden pardoned his son Hunter after having insisted he wouldn’t, sparking criticism. He has since issued an unprecedented wave of pardons and commutations, including for 37 federal death row inmates.
Among them are Thomas Sanders, who murdered a 12-year-old girl and her mother; Iouri Mikhel, responsible for killing five immigrants during ransom kidnappings; Kaboni Savage, a drug dealer linked to 12 murders, including four children; James Roane Jr., involved in 11 drug-related murders; and Jorge Avila-Torrez, who sexually assaulted and killed two young girls and later strangled a naval officer.
Biden essentially blamed the incoming Trump administration for his actions.
“Guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President, and now President, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” Biden said in a statement. “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
However, Biden offered no explanation as to why the original sentences were considered unjust, leaving many Americans questioning his motivations. Further casting doubt on the notion that this was an act of conscience is the fact that three death row inmates—Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018; Dylann Roof, a white nationalist who murdered nine at a historically Black church in Charleston in 2015; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 did not have their death sentences commuted.
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The most likely explanation is that Biden (or his handlers) recognized that commuting the sentences of these individuals would provoke too much backlash. If this were truly a matter of conscience regarding the death penalty, every death row inmate would have been spared. Undoubtedly, this action was driven by political motivation to satisfy the radical left, the only faction that appears to perceive his commutations as positive.
Overall, his actions have received bipartisan criticism, as few seem to understand what he’s doing.
And it looks like he poked the bear on the issue of the federal death penalty.
President-elect Donald Trump wasted no time signaling a sharp departure from the criminal justice policies of the Biden administration. On Truth Social, Trump pledged to “vigorously pursue” the death penalty for violent convicted felons after he takes office in January.
“As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters,” he wrote a post accompanied by a screenshot of a New York Post article about Biden’s commutations. “We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!”
During his campaign, Trump advocated for expanded use of the death penalty as part of his tough stance on reducing violent crime, drug trafficking, and human trafficking. He also pledged to seek the death penalty for any migrant who kills a U.S. citizen or law enforcement officer. Biden’s callousness has likely only emboldened Trump.
