'Hallelujah': Writer praises Biden's measure of mercy amid GOP meltdown

President Joe Biden exhibited profound "moral wisdom" in his decision to commute 37 out of 40 death row inmates to life without parole, Elizabeth Bruenig wrote for The Atlantic on Monday. Biden issued these pardons to prevent another spree of executions like that which occurred under the first Trump administration — although, perhaps sensitive to the controversy over his last mass clemency including some particularly heinous criminals, took care not to commute the sentences of the Charleston church shooter, the Boston Marathon bomber, or the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter — and despite that, Republicans still pounced and threw a fit over the decision. Biden himself seemed prepared for that eventuality in his statement, and the recriminations have already begun, despite the fact that life without parole is still a severe punishment: Fair enough; these prisoners’ crimes were to a person evil and left scores of families with holes in their lives. And in practice, because the three terroristic mass murderers denied clemency will likely be bogged down in proceedings throughout the Trump administration, this decision will "effectively end the federal death penalty for a generation."