Joe Biden Calls to Prevent Execution Craze on Death Row Under Trump Administration

Minister Joe Biden Once elected president, he called for action to prevent a series of federal executions Donald Trump He starts his job in January.

13 prisoners were executed An unprecedented series of federal executions In the last six months of Trump’s first term.

These executions continued even though experts said mental health and other issues should have prevented most from occurring. Trump administration spent millions to ensure these are done during the coronavirus outbreak.

After Trump won a second term on Wednesday, the Rev. Sharon Risher sent a letter to Biden urging him to take action to prevent Trump from going on a second execution spree, including commuting the sentences of all inmates on federal death row.

“We write to you today with renewed concern and urgency,” Risher wrote in his letter. news week has been reviewed. “President-Elect Donald Trump’s The stated plan is to execute all remaining prisoners on federal death row. “It is vital that you deny him that opportunity by commuting every death row inmate left on federal and military death row.”

The letter was signed by a coalition of nearly 350 organizations, including Amnesty International USA, Death Penalty Action, Equal Justice USA, Faithful America, Human Rights Watch and the Innocence Project.

Biden broke his promise to end the federal death penalty, but the Justice Department announced a moratorium on federal executions in 2021.

That moratorium could be quickly lifted when Trump returns to the White House in January, but Risher’s letter notes that “it is not too late to act decisively.”

“We are grateful that there have been no further executions of federal prisoners under your administration,” he wrote. “As you know, this abhorrent and outdated punishment raises deep concerns, including the arbitrariness of its application, inherent racial biases, and the alarming rate of innocence among those sentenced to death.”

The letter called on Biden to make federal executions “impossible” during Trump’s second term by immediately commuting the sentences of those on federal and military death row; de-authorization of ongoing federal capital actions; canceling the lethal injection protocol; and ordering the Federal Bureau of Prisons to demolish the federal execution chamber at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

The White House was contacted via email for comment. A Trump spokesperson was also contacted via email for comment.

Risher, president of Death Penalty Action, said he wants Biden to know that commuting the sentences of those on federal death row will help the families of murder victims.

His mother, cousins ​​and a friend He was among those shot and killed by white supremacist Dylann Roof during a shooting attack on a church in South Carolina in 2015.

“It’s been almost a decade, and I’m very clear about why I oppose executions,” Risher said. news week.

“Killing Dylann Roof will do nothing to help me heal, and in fact just seeing his name on the news brings back the horror of the violence he committed and brings us back to the pain of that terrible day. Because he is on his deathbed. He can continue the terror he plans to create because the focus is on him if he executes him.” If they do, he’ll be the center of attention and get another chance to vent his hatred, and I’ll say no.”

His message to Biden was: “If you change all these sentences to death by incarceration rather than execution, you ensure that those murderers are buried in obscurity. That’s what’s really going to help us heal.”

She added: “I want Joe Biden to know that I will be with him when he signs these amendments and I will make it clear to the world that what he is doing is helping victimized families more than helping murderers.”

Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, said: news week Although many death penalty opponents criticized Biden on this issue, “the truth is that he did the most pragmatic thing as soon as he took office.”

He said: “The President appointed an Attorney General who understood the Administration’s position and knew better than to issue any death warrants. Anything more would not have harmed his relations with the Administration.” CongressBut now it’s all over.”

He added that Biden now has a chance to “take away Donald Trump’s power to execute people, which is one of the things he loves.”

“If Biden commutes all of these death sentences, Donald Trump will never be able to conduct a judicial execution again. It would be a great legacy if Biden lived up to his morals and saved dozens of lives while leaving Trump a painful parting gift.”