Biden’s commutations just scratch the surface

Three days before Christmas, President Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, thus sparing them the likelihood of Trump executing them when he takes office.

This decision was welcomed by many people, from Pope Francis to civil rights organizations to 34 of those 37 people who were facing death. Thousands of individuals had called, emailed, signed petitions, protested outside of the White House and held press conferences demanding that Biden spare those on the federal death row from certain execution.

The U.S. government has carried out only 16 executions since federal and state death penalties were reinstated in 1976 — three by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003 and then 13 under President Donald Trump in a six month period, from July 2020 to January 2021. This is a small number compared to the executions in individual states, which now total 1,607 since the 1970s, with 1,310 of them having taken place in former Confederate states in the South.

Likewise, 11 of the 16 federal executions (69%) were of people tried and convicted in the South. Six of those (37%) were in Texas, which accounts for 38% of all state executions in the U.S. since 1976.

Biden has taken the most consequential step of any U.S. president to address the immoral and unconstitutional harms of capital punishment. But did Biden do the right thing? The answer is a resounding NO!

When Biden campaigned for president, he promised to abolish the federal death penalty. He did not! He could have asked governors and legislators in the states that still have capital punishment to reconsider their laws, since it has been proven that the death penalty is racist, it kills innocent people, it does not deter crime, and it costs more financially to keep someone on death row than to give them a life sentence.

The only people remaining on federal death row are Dylann Roof, who killed nine people at a Charleston, South Carolina, Black church; Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Tree of Life synagogue shooter Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people. Biden decided they would stay on death row.

Texas activists speak out.

In Texas, where six of the federal prisoners were tried in federal courts, opposition was swift.

Hadi Jawad, president of Human Rights Dallas, said in a press statement received by this writer: “We urge President Biden to reconsider this selective granting of clemency and commute the death sentences of the three remaining men. It’s the right thing to do.”

Jawad is the past president and a longtime outspoken Muslim activist of the Dallas Peace and Justice Center. Jawad was a leader in defending The Holy Land Five, humanitarians arrested, tried and sentenced to prison in an anti-Muslim attack after 9-11.

Dr. Rick Halperin, co-founder of Human Rights Dallas and a leader of the movement to remove the death penalty, said: “By leaving three men on death row, who invariably now stand to be put to death, President Biden perpetuates the preposterous belief that there are indeed certain categories of people who ‘deserve’ execution and for whom no mercy or compassion can or will be shown. The death penalty is never the answer.”

The Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, a statewide activist organization based in Houston, stated: “The death penalty is on its way out. Biden missed his opportunity to do what people wanted. He and his Democratic Party are so out of touch with regular working people and with Black and Brown people who fill the prisons and death row, that it’s hard to see them as different from the Republican Party.

“Yet they wonder why they lost the election! Why in 2024 did they not have opposition to the death penalty in their platform like it had been for decades? … For every eight people executed in the last 50 years, one innocent person has been identified and set free. This is a shocking rate of error.

“Furthermore, with cases like Marcellus Williams in Missouri, where the prosecutor’s office, several jurors and the victim’s family did not want execution, this innocent man was executed in September. Here in Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton is still trying to have an innocent Robert Roberson executed, despite evidence there was in fact no crime. Roberson is charged with killing his daughter, who died from serious health issues and not murder.

“Because Robert [Roberson] is autistic, investigators decided he was a killer, because his responses to their questions seemed ‘off.’ Then there’s Melissa Lucio, whose judge and prosecutor have both asked Texas’ highest criminal court to exonerate her. Cases like these prove that the system is broken and cannot be fixed. Capital punishment must be abolished now!”

Commutations undermine legal efforts

In a twist to the commutations, three of those Biden commuted did not want his commutation. Billie Allen has proclaimed his innocence since he was arrested at age 19, and he is now 47. Allen told National Public Radio Dec. 20 that he wanted to be pardoned not commuted. He said that the three Biden kept on death row should have also been commuted.

Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis both filed emergency motions in court on Dec. 30 seeking injunctions to block the commutation of their death sentences. Their families have explained that their loved one is innocent and if taken off death row will lose the legal counsel required to be given those facing execution.

Abolish the death penalty now!

Gloria Rubac has been organizing against the death penalty since 1982. After working on the Coalition to Free Clarence Brandley, who was freed in 1990, she helped found the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement and is a lead organizer. She has witnessed two of her friends being executed and has protested over 400 executions in Texas.