Joe Biden commutes sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates before Trump takes office
The IndependentSign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Joe Biden announced on Monday that he is commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment, takes office. While running for president in 2020, Biden's campaign website said he would "work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government's example." Speculation that Biden could commute federal death sentences intensified last week after the White House announced he plans to visit Italy on the final foreign trip of his presidency next month. Martin Luther King III, who publicly urged Biden to change the death sentences, said in a statement issued by the White House that the president "has done what no president before him was willing to do: take meaningful and lasting action not just to acknowledge the death penalty's racist roots but also to remedy its persistent unfairness."