[pjw] NEWS: Using presidential power for good rather than selfishness

[Peace and Justice Works]

PJW supporters
While it's not often at the forefront of our organizing these days, thanks 
to a continuing moratorium here in Oregon, PJW's philosophy about opposing 
state violence includes our opposition to the death penalty.

After doing a 180 degree turn and pardoning his son Hunter a few weeks ago 
(really seems he probably should have made that among his final acts), 
President Biden has commuted the sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death 
row inmates to life in prison. As the saying goes, don't kill people to 
teach people that killing is wrong.

However, this comes with the caveat that apparently people who engage in 
mass murder or "terrorism" DO deserve to have the state use its authority 
to take a life. Well... I don't know about that. Maybe his bible says 
"thou shalt not kill unless thee useth drones or the person is a 
terrorist."

Anyhoo, here's an AP article outlining the decision and who it is being 
applied to. To answer the question I had after seeing this announced on 
several news channels, the three who are not being spared are the man 
who killed many Black people in the South Carolina church in 2015, the man 
who blew up a b*mb at the Boston Marathon in 2013, and the man who shot 
many Jewish congregants in Pennsylvania in 2018.

Like the removal of people from Guantanamo (though this is a much higher 
percentage-- 93% vs 10%), this takes some wind out of Trump's sails if he 
tries perpetuating these ongoing inhumane policies.
dan handelman
peace and justice works

https://apnews.com/article/biden-death-row-commutations-trump-executions-f67b5e04453cd1aa6383c516bc14f300
Biden gives life in prison to 37 of 40 federal death row inmates before 
Trump can resume executions
By  WILL WEISSERT and DARLENE SUPERVILLE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday announced that he is 
commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, 
converting their punishments to life imprisonment just weeks before 
President-elect Donald Trump, an outspoken proponent of expanding capital 
punishment, takes office.

The move spares the lives of people convicted in killings, including the 
slayings of police and military officers, people on federal land and those 
involved in deadly bank robberies or drug deals, as well as the killings 
of guards or prisoners in federal facilities.

It means just three federal inmates continue to face execution. They are 
Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black 
members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 
Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally 
shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of life Synagogue in 2018, the 
deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history.

“I’ve dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair 
and effective justice system,” Biden said in a statement. “Today, I am 
commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row 
to life sentences without the possibility of parole. These commutations 
are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on 
federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass 
murder.”

Reaction to the president’s end-of-year act of clemency was strong, 
particularly among those who were victimized by Roof.

Michael Graham, whose sister Cynthia Hurd was killed by Roof, wants him to 
die for his crimes and was thankful Biden kept him on death row. He said 
Roof’s lack of remorse and simmering white nationalism in the U.S. means 
he is the kind of dangerous and evil person the death penalty is intended 
for.

“This was a crime against a race of people who were doing something all 
Americans do on a Wednesday night – go to Bible study,” Graham said. “It 
didn’t matter who was there, only that they were Black.”

Felicia Sanders, who shielded her granddaughter while watching Roof kill 
her son Tywanza and her aunt Susie Jackson sent her lawyer, Andy Savage, a 
text message that called Biden’s decision to not spare Roof’s life a 
wonderful Christmas gift.

The Biden administration in 2021 announced a moratorium on federal capital 
punishment to study the protocols used, which suspended executions during 
Biden’s term. But Biden actually had promised to go further on the issue 
in the past, pledging to end federal executions without the caveats for 
terrorism and hate-motivated, mass killings.

While running for president in 2020, Biden’s campaign website said he 
would “work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the 
federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s 
example.”

Similar language didn’t appear on Biden’s reelection website before he 
left the presidential race in July.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of 
their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered 
unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden’s statement said. “But 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.”

He took a political jab at Trump, saying, “In good conscience, I cannot 
stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has spoken frequently of expanding 
executions. In a speech announcing his 2024 campaign, Trump called for 
those “caught selling drugs to receive the death penalty for their heinous 
acts.” He later promised to execute drug and human smugglers and even 
praised China’s harsher treatment of drug peddlers. During his first term 
as president, Trump also advocated for the death penalty for drug dealers.

There were 13 federal executions during Trump’s first term, more than 
under any president in modern history, and some may have happened fast 
enough to have contributed to the spread of the coronavirus at the federal 
death row facility in Indiana.

Those were the first federal executions since 2003. The final three 
occurred after Election Day in November 2020 but before Trump left office 
the following January, the first time federal prisoners were put to death 
by a lame-duck president since Grover Cleveland in 1889.

Biden faced recent pressure from advocacy groups urging him to act to make 
it more difficult for Trump to increase the use of capital punishment for 
federal inmates. The president’s announcement also comes less than two 
weeks after he commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were 
released from prison and placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 
pandemic, and of 39 others convicted of nonviolent crimes, the largest 
single-day act of clemency in modern history.

The announcement also followed the post-election pardon that Biden granted 
his son Hunter on federal gun and tax charges after long saying he would 
not issue one, sparking an uproar in Washington. The pardon also raised 
questions about whether he would issue sweeping preemptive pardons for 
administration officials and other allies who the White House worries 
could be unjustly targeted by Trump’s second administration.

Speculation that Biden could commute federal death sentences intensified 
last week after the White House announced he plans to visit Italy on the 
final foreign trip of his presidency next month. Biden, a practicing 
Catholic, will meet with Pope Francis, who recently called for prayers for 
U.S. death row inmates in hopes their sentences will be commuted.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has long called for an end 
to the death penalty, said Biden’s decision is a “significant step in 
advancing the cause of human dignity in our nation” and moves the country 
“a step closer to building a culture of life.”

Martin Luther King III, who publicly urged Biden to change the death 
sentences, said in a statement shared by the White House that the 
president “has done what no president before him was willing to do: take 
meaningful and lasting action not just to acknowledge the death penalty’s 
racist roots but also to remedy its persistent unfairness.”

Madeline Cohen, an attorney for Norris Holder, who faced death for the 
1997 fatal shooting of a guard during a bank robbery in St. Louis, said 
his case “reflects many of the system’s flaws” and thanked Biden for 
converting his sentence to life in prison. Holder, who is Black, was 
sentenced by an all-white jury.

“Norris’ case exemplifies the racial bias and arbitrariness that led the 
President to commute federal death sentences,” Cohen said.

Donnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose partner was killed by 
one of the men whose death sentence was converted, said the execution of 
“the person who killed my police partner and best friend would have 
brought me no peace.”

“The president has done what is right here,” Oliverio said in a statement 
also issued by the White House, “and what is consistent with the faith he 
and I share.”

Weissert reported from West Palm Beach, Florida. Associated Press writers 
Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, and Jim Salter in O’Fallon, 
Missouri, contributed to this report.