
President Joe Biden announced Monday that he is commuting the death sentences of 37 of 40 men on federal death row.
Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers will be the three left on the federal execution list, reports Newsweek. Roof carried out the racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. Tsarnaev was convicted of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three and injured more than 260 in 2013. Bowers murdered 11 congregants after storming the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
President Biden believes that the US must end the use of the death penalty on a federal level, except in cases of hate-based terrorism and mass murder," the White House said in a statement. Biden called the commutations "consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder."
The White House added that "this historic commutation continues the president's record of reforming the criminal justice system. The president has issued more pardons at this point in his presidency than any of his predecessors, at the same point in their first term."
Earlier this month, President Biden commuted the sentence of 1,500 Americans – the highest number of commutations in one day.
Earlier this month, Biden caused a storm when, contrary to his previous statements, pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who was charged with tax offenses and illegal possession of a weapon.
Biden Jr. was due to stand trial in both offenses, but the pardon granted to him by his father would lead to their closure. The outgoing president carried out the pardon even though he had previously stated that he would not use his authority to pardon his son.
"The charges against him were attempts by my political opponents in Congress to harm me," Biden said in a statement, adding "no reasonable person looking at the facts of Hunter's cases could come to any conclusion, other than that Hunter was singled out just because he is my son."