Out of 40 federal death row inmates, 37 have had their sentences commuted by US President Joe Biden, who changed their punishment to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The three who are not included in the measure are the 2018 murderer of Jewish worshippers and the Boston Marathon bomber.
“I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” Biden said in a statement. His figure excludes around 2,000 individuals who were found guilty and sentenced to death by State authorities.

Biden’s choice was made before to President-elect Donald Trump’s January return, during which he resumed federal executions.
Biden has granted reprieves to nine inmates convicted of killing their fellow inmates, four for killings during bank robberies, and one for killing a prison officer.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said.

Among those granted clemency is Len Davis, a disgraced former New Orleans police officer who organised a woman’s murder and ran a drugs ring with other officers.
Avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof, who shot and killed nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who assisted in carrying out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, are among the three people now on death row.

Biden has opposed the death sentence during his campaign, and after he was elected president, the Justice Department placed a federal moratorium on its application.
In his last six months in office, Trump presided over 13 fatal injection deaths during his first term.
Before Trump restarted federal executions in July 2020, no federal prisoners had been executed in the United States since 2003.

Trump said throughout his reelection campaign that he would extend the death penalty to include drug and people traffickers, as well as migrants who murder U.S. residents.
Biden’s statement that he could not “in good conscience – stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted” seemed to allude to Trump’s ambitions.
According to US law, a president’s successor cannot overturn these clemency rulings.

Biden’s decision will have no effect on prisoners sentenced to death in state courts, which totals approximately 2,250 inmates, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. More than 70 state executions occurred during Biden’s administration.
23 of the 50 states in the United States have abolished the death sentence. Six other states, including Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee, have moratoriums in effect.
Earlier this month, Biden lightened the sentences of roughly 1,500 people and pardoned 39 more for nonviolent crimes.

He also pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, who was facing two felony charges. He had previously pleaded guilty to tax charges in September and was found guilty of being an illicit drug user in possession of a firearm in June, making him the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a crime.
The US Constitution states that a president has extensive “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”