Activists call on Biden to clear death row before Trump takes office
WASHINGTON – A group of human rights activists, former corrections officials and families of crime victims asked President Joe Biden on Monday to use his clemency power to take all 40 inmates off federal death row before he hands over power to President-elect Donald Trump.
In a series of open letters, the group noted that Biden campaigned on opposing capital punishment. Trump supports the death penalty and restarted federal executions after a nearly 20-year pause during his first term.
The letters Monday aligned with a larger effort by congressional Democrats and others to persuade Biden to use his clemency power to commute death sentences to life sentences without parole and to free people serving disproportionally long drug sentences.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said last week that Biden was expected to make more clemency announcements “at the end of his term.”
“He’s thinking through that process very thoroughly,” Jean-Pierre said.
Presidents typically order a round of pardons toward the end of their time in office. This month, Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon of his son Hunter, erasing years of legal troubles.
Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., one of the president’s closest allies, joined more than 60 other Democrats in sending a letter to Biden last month urging him to use his clemency powers to address decades of disparities that led to mass incarceration of Black people and other vulnerable populations.
In an interview, Clyburn said Biden had the opportunity to rectify the injustice of decades of harsh sentences that have disproportionately affected Black people.
“You got people in Colorado getting wealthy now because we changed the name from marijuana to cannabis, and now it’s fine to grow cannabis, but you go to jail and get a record that you’re saddled with if it were marijuana,” Clyburn said.
As a senator, Biden championed a 1994 crime bill that many experts say fueled mass incarceration. He has since expressed regret for his support of the legislation, and he committed during the 2020 campaign to addressing the long drug sentences that resulted.
Clyburn, who recommended that the president pardon his son and issue blanket pardons to protect against political retribution by Trump, said he wanted Biden to show similar empathy for those serving time in prison.
”I wouldn’t ask him to do for my constituents something that should not also apply to his own son,” Clyburn said. “That’s what I told him.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.