Biden Contemplates Federal Commutation Requests

On November 25, 2024, President Joe Biden par­doned two Thanksgiving turkeys, an annu­al, sym­bol­ic tra­di­tion that high­lights the president’s con­sti­tu­tion­al author­i­ty to issue par­dons and com­mu­ta­tions. Now, as President Biden sets to leave office in January 2025, 60 mem­bers of Congress and many oth­ers are urg­ing him to grant clemen­cy to the 40 men cur­rent­ly on fed­er­al death row. During his 2020 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, President Biden said he would work to abol­ish the fed­er­al death penal­ty but there has been lit­tle evi­dence of any­thing done in fur­ther­ance of this promise. President Trump, on the oth­er hand, has vowed to use and expand the fed­er­al death penal­ty when he resumes office.

A grant of clemen­cy to some or all the fed­er­al­ly death-sen­tenced men would not be unprece­dent­ed. President Biden would join a num­ber of elect­ed offi­cials who have made sim­i­lar mass grants of clemen­cy for a vari­ety of rea­sons. Since 1976, gov­er­nors in eight states have com­mut­ed all death sen­tences under their author­i­ty, often cit­ing sys­temic con­cerns. In 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan cleared the state’s death row, com­mut­ing 167 death sen­tences to life in prison due to many wrong­ful con­vic­tions and sys­temic con­cerns about the fair­ness of the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem. Upon announc­ing his deci­sion, Gov. Ryan said, ​“I start­ed with this issue because I was and still am con­cerned about inno­cence, but once I stud­ied, I pon­dered what had become of our jus­tice sys­tem, I came to care above all about fair­ness. Fairness is fun­da­men­tal to the American sys­tem of jus­tice and to our way of life.” In 2011, the state of Illinois abol­ished the death penal­ty, and then-Governor Pat Quinn com­mut­ed the sen­tences of the 15 indi­vid­u­als remain­ing on death row to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Gov. Quinn said that when he signed the abo­li­tion bill, he meant to ​“abol­ish the death penal­ty for every­one,” includ­ing those already sen­tenced to death. 

Most recent­ly, Oregon Governor Kate Brown com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of 17 pris­on­ers on the state’s death row before leav­ing office in 2022, call­ing the death penal­ty ​“both dys­func­tion­al and immoral.” Gov. Brown’s com­mu­ta­tions com­plet­ed what she char­ac­ter­ized as ​“the near abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty” by the state leg­is­la­ture in 2019. At that time, the leg­is­la­ture amend­ed its death penal­ty statute to sig­nif­i­cant­ly lim­it the crimes for which cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment can be imposed. In her state­ment announc­ing the com­mu­ta­tions, Gov. Brown called the death penal­ty ​“an irre­versible pun­ish­ment that does not allow for cor­rec­tion; is waste­ful of tax­pay­er dol­lars; does not make com­mu­ni­ties safer; and can­not be and nev­er has been admin­is­tered fair­ly and equi­tably.” Gov. Brown said the com­mu­ta­tions were ​“con­sis­tent” with the legislature’s effort to func­tion­al­ly end the death penalty.

In 1986, New Mexico Governor Toney Anaya com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of five pris­on­ers on the state’s death row. Gov. Anaya said that he did this because he ​“con­sis­tent­ly opposed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as being inhu­mane, immoral, anti-God, and incom­pat­i­ble with an enlight­ened soci­ety.” In 1991, before leav­ing office, Ohio Governor Richard Celeste com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of eight death row pris­on­ers. Ahead of New Jersey’s abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in 2007, Governor Jon Corzine com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of the eight indi­vid­u­als remain­ing on the state’s death row. Governor Martin O’Malley com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of four pris­on­ers still on Maryland’s death row in 2015, after the legislature’s prospec­tive abo­li­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 2013. In 2020, Colorado Governor Jared Polis com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of the three pris­on­ers still on the state’s death row after the legislature’s prospec­tive abo­li­tion of capital punishment.