Trump touts death penalty after Biden commutes sentences

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday promised the Justice Department would pursue the death penalty against murderers, rapists, and child abusers after he returns to office next month. His comment came a day after President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row. Those individuals will now serve life sentences without the possibility of parole, the White House said. Biden stopped federal executions earlier in his term, the administration said.

Why only 37 and not all 40? President Biden believed that the federal government should quit imposing the death penalty on individuals who hadn’t committed hate crimes or terrorist acts, the White House said.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the three individuals remaining on the federal death row—who Biden did not pardon—were convicted for:

• The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing

• The 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C.

• The 2018 shooting at Tree of life Synagogue in Pittsburgh

What was the president’s thinking? Biden condemned the acts committed by the 37 individuals whose sentences he was commuting, the White House said. He also grieved for their victims and their families. Nonetheless, because of his experience as a public defender, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vice president, and president, he could not in good conscience allow the federal government to execute those 37 individuals, he said.

How are victim’s families reacting? The daughter of Donna Major, who was killed during a 2017 bank robbery in South Carolina, said the commutations were a gross abuse of power. Major’s family was denied a meeting with the federal pardon attorney, the daughter, Heather Turner, wrote in a social media statement. In the case of a murdered police officer, the officer’s former partner on the force agreed with commutations, while the officer’s widow did not, The Associated Press reported.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift about how, earlier this month, Biden claimed to set the modern record for most presidential pardons in a day.