Can Donald Trump undo Joe Biden’s death sentence commutations?

With just weeks left in office, US President Joe Biden has commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 federal death row inmates, potentially thwarting President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to expand federal executions during his next administration.

Biden’s move was quickly condemned by Republicans, with some accusing the president of siding with criminals rather than law-abiding Americans.

Federal executions were relatively rare before Trump’s first term, which ended with a flurry of executions that ended a 130-year precedent of pausing executions in the middle of a presidential transition.

He has promised to resume the practice when he returns to the White House in January, setting the stage for potential legal battles early in the administration.

This is what we know.

On Mondays, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 sentenced to deathchanging his sentence to life in prison without parole.

Only three inmates remained who faced the death penalty, including convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Robert Bowers, who was sentenced to death for killing 11 worshipers and wounding seven during a shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue. Life in Pittsburgh in 2018.

The third, Dylann Roof, was sentenced to death in 2017 for a mass shooting that left nine black parishioners dead at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.

While the move was widely praised by human rights groups such as Amnesty International, it was quickly condemned by some Republicans, as well as Trump’s transition team and his political allies.

In a statement, Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, said: “These are among the world’s worst killers and this abhorrent decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families and their loved ones.

“President Trump defends the rule of law, which will return when he returns to the White House,” he added. Trump cannot undo the commutations when he returns to the White House next month.

Texas Republican Chip Roy posted on X that the decision was “unconscionable” and an abuse of power “to carry out a miscarriage of justice.”

Another Republican, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, said that “when given the choice between law-abiding Americans or criminals, Joe Biden and the Democrats always choose criminals.”

Some family members also expressed their anger.

On Facebook, Heather Turner, whose mother was murdered in a bank robbery in 2017, called the commutations a “gross abuse of power.”

“At no time did the president consider the victims,” ​​he wrote. “He and his followers have blood on their hands.”

The commutations do not apply to the approximately 2,200 death row inmates sentenced by state courts, over whom the president has no authority.

Over the course of his election campaign, Trump promised to resume federal executions and make more people eligible for the death penalty, including those convicted of child rape or drug and human trafficking cases, as well as immigrants who kill to US citizens or police officers. .

“These are terrible, terrible, horrible people, responsible for death, carnage and crime across the country,” Trump said when announcing his 2022 presidential bid.

“We are going to ask that all those who sell drugs and are caught receive the death penalty for their atrocious acts,” he added.

There are more than 40 federal laws that can theoretically result in the death penalty, from murders committed during a drug-related shooting to genocide.

Almost all – with the exception of espionage and treason – explicitly involve the death of a victim.

Trump, however, has provided few details about how he plans to fulfill his campaign promise.

Despite the lack of clarity, Trump’s promises to expand the federal death penalty have prompted strong warnings from human rights advocates.

In a Dec. 11 statement, for example, the American Civil Liberties Union said Trump’s “chilling” plans amount to an expansion of the “murder spree he began in the final six months of his first presidency.”

“He has already shown us that he will keep these promises,” the statement said.

Among the inmates executed during the final days of the first Trump administration were Lisa Montgomery, the first woman executed by the federal government since 1953, and Lezmond Mitchell, the only Native American on federal death row.

US media reported that Trump cannot reverse Biden’s commutations.

Trump’s efforts to expand the death penalty to crimes not involving murder are likely to face legal challenges.

In 2008, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that those convicted of raping children cannot be executed, adding that it is unclear whether the death penalty could be applied to crimes in which the victim does not die.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, cases with child victims are particularly prone to wrongful convictions, can be “extremely emotional” and pit family members against each other.

Any further expansion of crimes that are eligible for the federal death penalty would require Congress to act and change the law.

In 2024, two bills, both sponsored by Florida Republican and Trump ally Anna Paulina Luna, sought to expand the use of capital crimes to include possession of child pornography, as well as trafficking, exploitation and abuse of children.

Both failed to be approved in the House of Representatives.

It is also unlikely that Trump will be able to quickly repopulate the pool of federal death row inmates, since most death penalty cases take years and are subject to lengthy appeals processes.

While he has no direct authority over state executions, some experts have warned that Trump’s pro-death penalty stance could trigger more executions at the state level.

“His rhetoric can and has spurred draconian actions and attitudes by state leaders on a number of issues, including in the context of the criminal legal system,” said Yasmin Cader, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and director of the Center Trone told Justice and Equality to CNN.

In addition to the federal government and the US military, 27 states in the country still have the death penalty.

A Gallup poll conducted in October found that a slim majority of Americans (53%) support the death penalty for convicted murderers, down from 50% a year earlier.