Originally published at National Catholic Register
President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the death row sentences of more than three dozen federal prisoners, ordering that the formerly condemned inmates serve out life sentences instead of being executed by the government.
The White House announced the clemencies on Monday morning, stating that the president was “commuting the sentences of 37 individuals on federal death row.”
“Those individuals will have their sentences reclassified from execution to life without the possibility of parole,” the White House said.
The White House noted that the order leaves in place the death sentences of three federal prisoners guilty of “terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.” Those sentences apply to Robert Bowers, who committed the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue massacre; Dylann Roof, who in 2015 killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the perpetrators of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
The commutations come after significant campaigns from Catholic advocates who urged the president to issue broad clemency in the waning days of his administration.
Pope Francis earlier this month called for the death sentences of U.S. prisoners to be thrown out, praying that “their sentences may be commuted or changed.”
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