Call on President Biden to Commute All Federal Death Sentences

So. What next?

The incoming 47th United States President has had a long-standing infatuation with violence, killing, and the application of the death penalty. Thirteen people were put to death in an unprecedented run of federal executions in the final six months of his first term. Those executions went ahead even though experts said that mental health and other issues should have stopped many of them from taking place, and his administration spent millions of dollars to ensure they were carried out during the coronavirus pandemic.

While on the campaign trail, he has promised to pick up where his previous administration left off and execute the 40 individuals who remain on federal death row. He has also called for an expansion of using a death penalty sentence, including for drug dealers.

While sitting President Joe Biden didn't keep a promise to abolish the federal death penalty, his Justice Department announced a moratorium on federal executions in 2021. With the Biden Administration set to end in the next two months, the President cannot abolish the federal death penalty, but he can commute every federal death sentence.

Reverend Sharon Risher, who lost her mother, cousins, and a friend in the 2015 shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, is a leading spokesperson calling for an end to the federal death penalty with Death Penalty Action. The organization sent President Biden a letter urging him to take action, including by commuting the sentences of all inmates on federal death row, to prevent the incoming administration from embarking on a second execution spree. The letter was signed by a coalition of about 350 organizations, including Amnesty International USA, Death Penalty Action, Equal Justice USA, Faithful America, Human Rights Watch and The Innocence Project.

The letter urged Biden to make federal executions "impossible" during the 47th President's second term by immediately commuting the sentences of those on federal and military death rows; deauthorizing pending federal capital trial cases; rescinding the lethal injection protocol; and ordering the Federal Bureau of Prisons to demolish the federal execution chamber inside the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Risher added; "I want Joe Biden to know that I will stand by him when he signs those commutations, and I will explain to the world that what he is doing helps victim families far more than it helps those murderers."

You can send a message to President Biden and urge him to prevent a death row execution spree overseen by the incoming administration. Sign the Death Penalty Action petition asking President Biden to commute every death sentence remaining on federal and military death rows and demolish the federal execution chamber and the building in which it is housed at the Federal Correctional Institution at Terre Haute, Indiana.

Petition --->>> President Biden, Commute Death Row and Demolish the Death House

Please share this information with your advocacy networks and ensure action can be taken to stop federal executions before they're certain to be resumed as soon as January 2025.