More Than 80 Civil Rights and Advocacy Organizations Urge President Biden to End Federal Executions

A coali­tion of 82 civ­il rights and advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tions have called on President Joe Biden to hon­or his cam­paign promise of ​“ensur­ing equal­i­ty, equi­ty, and jus­tice in our crim­i­nal legal sys­tem” by tak­ing exec­u­tive action to end fed­er­al exe­cu­tions. The groups, led by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, asked Biden to com­mute the sen­tences of every­one on fed­er­al death row, dis­man­tle the fed­er­al death cham­ber, rescind the fed­er­al exe­cu­tion pro­to­col and oth­er guide­lines issued by President Trump, direct fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors not to seek death sen­tences, and impose a for­mal mora­to­ri­um on fed­er­al exe­cu­tions. All of the pro­posed actions, the groups said, can be achieved with­out legislative approval.

The let­ter to President Biden empha­sizes inequity and inac­cu­ra­cy in the admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. It calls the death penal­ty ​“cru­el, inef­fec­tive, and irre­versible” and stress­es the need to redress racial dis­par­i­ties in its appli­ca­tion as part of the gov­ern­ment response to the nation­wide protests for racial jus­tice that took place in 2020. The trans­for­ma­tion of the crim­i­nal legal sys­tem that those protests demand­ed, the coali­tion wrote, ​“can­not occur with­out address­ing the role the death penal­ty has played in rein­forc­ing false and racial­ized per­cep­tions of dan­ger­ous­ness, and espous­ing the idea that pub­lic safe­ty is pro­mot­ed and jus­tice is achieved through harsh punishment.” 

Echoing Biden’s own cam­paign plat­form, which high­light­ed the issue of inno­cence in express­ing Biden’s oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the let­ter says, ​“Since 1973, more than 170 indi­vid­u­als have been sen­tenced to death and exon­er­at­ed on inno­cence grounds, demon­strat­ing the high propen­si­ty for error in our crim­i­nal legal sys­tem and the unfath­omable con­se­quences that may fol­low. The only way to elim­i­nate the pos­si­bil­i­ty of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son is to do away with the punishment altogether.”

The orga­ni­za­tions, which also include the ACLU, Amnesty International, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, sev­er­al dis­abil­i­ty rights groups, reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions, and state-lev­el anti-death penal­ty orga­ni­za­tions, call the Trump administration’s exe­cu­tion spree ​“dis­grace­ful.” In an accom­pa­ny­ing press release, Cynthia Roseberry, deputy direc­tor of pol­i­cy for ACLU’s Justice Division, said the recent fed­er­al exe­cu­tions ​“sense­less­ly spread COVID-19 and defied the laws and norms that were intend­ed to act as guardrails. As states around the coun­try are increas­ing­ly turn­ing their backs on the death penal­ty, it is imper­a­tive that President Biden take every step in his pow­er to ensure that the atroc­i­ties we saw under the Trump admin­is­tra­tion can nev­er take place again.”

The let­ter con­cludes with a call for Biden to use his pres­i­den­tial pow­er to uphold the val­ues he has extolled both dur­ing his can­di­da­cy and in the ear­ly days of his pres­i­den­cy. ​“By tak­ing imme­di­ate action to com­mute the sen­tences of the 49 indi­vid­u­als on fed­er­al death row,” it says, ​“you have the abil­i­ty to show that the Biden-Harris admin­is­tra­tion will gov­ern with mer­cy and will work to put the might of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment behind poli­cies that rec­og­nize, reflect, and respect the dig­ni­ty, human­i­ty, and rights of all individuals.”