Will Biden clear out death row before leaving office?

Donald Trump's presidency ended with a rush of executions — a total of 13 federal inmates were put to death during the final months of his first administration. Now death penalty opponents are asking President Joe Biden to empty out federal-level death rows before Trump takes office again.

A coalition of death penalty opponents is asking Biden to "commute all federal death sentences to life without parole," said The Washington Post. There are currently 40 people on federal death row, including the gunman who killed Black churchgoers in South Carolina and the surviving Boston Marathon bomber. But the execution opponents — a group of "former prison officials, relatives of homicide victims, civil rights advocates and religious leaders" — say the death penalty is "arbitrary, unfair and biased." Biden's decision to issue a mass commutation would have long-term effects, said the Post: The move "could not be undone by his successor."

What did the commentators say?

Biden's career has been full of "contradictions" on the issue, David Rose said at UnHerd. Biden pledged in 2020 to pass legislation abolishing the federal death penalty, and Attorney General Merrick Garland adopted a moratorium on executions. But as a senator, he sponsored a crime bill that expanded the number of death-eligible crimes to include (as Biden said at the time) "everything but hang people for jaywalking." For liberals and pro-life Catholics, Rose said, Biden has one last chance to "redeem his record and leave a humane legacy."

Biden has the power to prevent "another gruesome Trump execution spree," Austin Sarat said at Slate. There are precedents, albeit at the state level. In 2022, outgoing Oregon Gov. Kate Brown commuted the death sentences of 17 men in her state. "The state should not be in the business of executing people," Brown said at the time. Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted 167 death sentences in 2003. The problem? "Biden has not seemed eager to wield his clemency power in this or any other area," Sarat said. That must change. Biden should "use his clemency power to empty the federal death row."

"It's too late for the president to abolish the death penalty," Elizabeth Bruenig said at The Atlantic. Biden has approached federal executions in much the same way that President Barack Obama did: "Leaving the architecture for carrying out capital sentences in place but benevolently neglecting to use it." But if Biden "really does abhor capital punishment as he has claimed," then he still has a pathway toward keeping his old campaign promises. The outgoing president "has the freedom to act on his values and save dozens of lives."

What next?

"Trump's government-in-waiting has for years intended to bring back a wave of federal executions," said Rolling Stone. The president-elect "doesn't think murderers and rapists should get off easy," a Trump adviser said. Federal inmates with death sentences are apprehensive about what the change in administrations will mean, said Angela Elleman, a death penalty defense lawyer. "There's a lot of fear on federal death row."