(WASHINGTON) — On Monday, President Joe Biden announced a pivotal decision to commute the sentences of 37 out of 40 individuals currently on federal death row, converting their penalties to life imprisonment. This move comes just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, a strong proponent of capital punishment, is slated to take office.

This landmark action spares the lives of those convicted of grave offenses, including the murders of police officers and military personnel, killings on federal property, as well as violent bank robberies and drug trafficking. The list also includes individuals responsible for the deaths of guards or fellow inmates within federal facilities.

As a consequence of Biden’s announcement, only three federal inmates remain under a death sentence: Dylann Roof, who was found guilty of the 2015 racially motivated massacre of nine Black churchgoers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the perpetrator of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, an attack that stands as the deadliest antisemitic incident in U.S. history.

“Throughout my career, I have aimed to reduce violent crime and promote a fair justice system,” Biden remarked in his announcement. “Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life without the possibility of parole. These commutations are in line with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, except in specific cases involving terrorism or hate-motivated mass murders.”

In 2021, the Biden Administration initiated a moratorium on federal capital punishment to reassess existing protocols, effectively halting executions during his tenure. Nevertheless, Biden has previously expressed a desire to go even further, signaling his commitment to eliminating federal executions entirely, without exceptions for cases of terrorism or hate crimes.

During his presidential campaign in 2020, Biden’s website stated his goal to “work towards passing legislation to abolish the death penalty at the federal level and motivate states to follow suit.”

However, similar assurances were noticeably absent from his reelection platform prior to his campaign suspension in July.

“Let me be clear: I condemn these murderers, mourn for their victims, and empathize deeply with the families who have suffered unimaginable losses,” Biden emphasized in his statement. “However, based on my conscience and my experiences as a public defender, Senate Judiciary Committee chair, vice president, and now president, I am increasingly convinced that we must eliminate the death penalty at the federal level.”

Biden also subtly criticized Trump, stating, “In good conscience, I cannot permit a new administration to revive the executions I have halted.”

Trump, who is set to take office on January 20, has consistently called for an expansion of the death penalty. In his 2024 campaign announcement, he suggested that individuals “caught selling drugs” should face capital punishment for their actions. He further promised executions for drug and human traffickers and even praised China’s stringent measures against drug dealers. During his first term, Trump was pivotal in advocating for the death penalty for drug offenders.

During Trump’s presidency, there were 13 federal executions—the highest number for any president in modern history—some of which were conducted rapidly enough to contribute to the spread of COVID-19 at the federal death row facility in Indiana.

These executions marked the first federal death penalties since 2003, with the last three occurring after Election Day 2020 but before Trump’s departure from office, marking the first instance of a lame-duck president overseeing federal executions since Grover Cleveland in 1889.

Biden has been under increasing pressure from advocacy groups urging him to act to prevent Trump from broadening the use of capital punishment against federal inmates. This recent announcement follows Biden’s earlier commutation of around 1,500 individuals who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with 39 others convicted of nonviolent crimes—representing the largest single-day clemency action in modern history.

This announcement also follows Biden’s controversial pardon of his son Hunter for federal gun and tax charges, which raised eyebrows in Washington. The pardon spurred discussions about the potential for broader preemptive pardons for administration officials and allies who could be targeted by Trump’s future administration.

Speculation surrounding Biden commuting federal death sentences intensified last week after the White House revealed his upcoming trip to Italy for his final foreign visit of his presidency next month. Being a practicing Catholic, Biden is expected to meet with Pope Francis, who has recently called for prayers for U.S. death row inmates in hopes of having their sentences commuted.

Martin Luther King III, who has publicly urged Biden to reconsider the death sentences, praised the president’s actions in a statement released by the White House, asserting that the president “has done what no previous president was willing to do: take meaningful and lasting action to not only acknowledge the death penalty’s racist origins but also to address its continuing inequities.”

Donnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose partner was killed by one of the individuals whose death sentence was commuted, shared his perspective, stating that executing “the person who took my police partner and best friend would have brought me no peace.”

“The president has made the right choice here,” Oliverio added, “and it resonates with the faith that both he and I share.”

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Weissert reported from West Palm Beach, Florida.