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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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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 when President-elect Donald Trump, a proponent of the death penalty, takes office on January 20.
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 killed 11 congregants after storming the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.
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The Biden administration in 2021 announced a moratorium on federal capital punishment, a decision that suspended federal executions during Biden's term. Since Trump's victory in November's election, he has faced growing calls to follow through with his campaign promise to end the federal death penalty and prevent Trump from overseeing another spree of federal executions after he returns to office.
In a statement on Monday, Biden said he was "more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level" and called the commutations "consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder."
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He added: "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."
And in a swipe at Trump, he added: "In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted."
Trump resumed federal executions in July 2020 after a 17-year hiatus. He oversaw 13 federal executions in his first term in the White House between 2016 and 2020.
Dylann Roof
Roof, now aged 30, carried out the racist slayings of Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
The avowed white supremacist opened fire during a Bible study session at the church on June 17 that year, killing nine and wounding one other person. He later told police he wanted to start a race war.
A jury found Roof guilty of 33 federal charges in December 2016, including nine counts of racially motivated hate crimes resulting in death. The same jury sentenced him to death in early 2017.
A federal appeals court upheld his conviction and death sentence in 2021.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
Tsarnaev, 31, was convicted of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013, that killed three people and injured 264 others.
He and his older brother Tamerlan set off two bombs near the marathon's finish line, killing Martin Richard, an 8-year-old from Boston, Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China and Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager from Medford, Massachusetts.
His lawyers argued that he should be spared the death penalty because he was influenced by his brother, who died in a gun battle with police on April 19.
Tsarnaev was convicted of all 30 charges against him, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction and the killing of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier during the getaway attempt. Prosecutors said the brothers carried out the attack to punish the U.S. for wars in Muslim countries.
A federal appeals court overturned Tsarnaev's death sentence in 2020, but the Supreme Court reinstated it in 2022. The appeals court ordered a judge in March to investigate the defense's claims of juror bias and determine whether the death sentence to stand, but Tsarnaev's attorneys are seeking to remove the judge, the Associated Press reported in August. If it is determined that the jurors should have been disqualified, the court said the judge should vacate Tsarnaev's sentence and hold a new penalty-phase trial.
Robert Bowers
Bowers, 52, killed 11 congregants in a shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh during Sabbath morning services on October 27, 2018. He also injured two worshippers and five police officers.
He had raged against Jewish people on social media before storming the synagogue with an AR-15 rifle and other weapons in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.
Bowers was convicted on 63 criminal counts in June last year, including hate crimes resulting in death and obstruction of free exercise of religion resulting in death. His attorneys had offered a guilty plea in exchange for a life sentence but prosecutors declined, choosing to take the case to trial and pursue the death penalty.
The same federal jury that convicted Bowers recommended that he be sentenced to death in August last year. It marked the first time during Biden's administration that federal prosecutors successfully sought and won the death penalty.
What People Are Saying
The Reverend Sharon Risher, whose mother Ethel Lee Lance and two cousins were among those shot dead by Roof, criticized Biden's decision to leave him on federal death row.
"I am happy for all those whose sentences have been commuted, and grateful to President Biden for this unprecedented act of mercy, but this is so unfair," Risher, who is board chair of Death Penalty Action, said in a statement to Newsweek.
"I need the President to understand that when you put a killer on death row, you also put their victim's families in limbo with the false promise that we must wait until there is an execution before we can begin to heal. Every time this case comes up, I am brought back to the day my mother and cousins were murdered, and I need that to stop."
She added: "Politics has gotten in the way of mercy. You can't rank victims, Mr. President. I am begging you to finish the job, not only with the three men left on federal death row, but also with those on the military death row. There's still time. Finish the job."
Other death penalty opponents also called on Biden to not leave anyone for Trump to execute when he returns to office.
Abraham Bonowitz, the executive director of Death Penalty Action, said: "The danger of leaving the death penalty as an available tool for Donald Trump to use cannot be overstated. Donald Trump idolizes dictators and relishes dictator-like power. We are absolutely grateful for what President Biden has done, but we urge him to finish the job. Do not give Trump the power to execute anyone."
Ohio state Representative Jean Schmidt, a former advocate of the death penalty who now opposes it, said in a statement to Newsweek: "I stood at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, after completing the race to wait for my sister to finish her run. I witnessed the bombing. I also witnessed the injured being carried into the medical tent. The visions haunt me today.
She continued: "I was initially thrilled that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev received the death penalty. Today, I have changed. I believe he deserves life in prison without parole, and I am disturbed that President Biden has not commuted his death sentence to life without parole."
Update 12/23/24, 10:44 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with a statement from Ohio state Representative Jean Schmidt.
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