Why Joe Biden should extend mercy to some of America’s worst criminals

With the president Joe BidenThe mandate of , subject to clemency warmed up. Biden now finds himself in an impasse familiar to many of his predecessors. The problem arises because leniency is a vast and virtually unregulated power. Presidents I can use it showing mercy to political allies, corrupt cronies, and people they believe have been treated unfairly. They can even spare their family members. Or, they may refuse to use the power of pardon. They don’t need a reason to grant grace other than that they choose to do so. As a result, whenever presidents issue pardons or reprieves, they risk being denounced as arbitrary, capricious, or corrupt.

Biden’s recent pardon of his son Hunter is a stark example of the risks presidents face. Even Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders said this set a “dangerous precedent”. And only twenty percent of the American public approve of what Biden did.

Since then, Biden has commuted the sentences or pardoned 1,500 people, according to the Associated Press. labeled the “greatest act of clemency in a single day.” With Biden’s term in the White House less than a month away, many are asking, “What next?” »

For all those who oppose capital punishment, the answer is clear: Biden should commute the sentences of all those on federal death row.

Those who call him to do so include people like Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, James Clyburn of South Carolina, Mary Scanlon of Pennsylvania and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, as well as progressive groups and religious organizations.

On December 9, a coalition of 134 “civil liberties, civil and human rights, faith-based, academic and social justice organizations” joined the effort to persuade Biden. A mass pardon “would bring the United States closer to two-thirds of the countries that have completely abolished capital punishment.” They asked the president “to consider what a higher sense of morality and duty calls us to do,” arguing that clemency toward those awaiting execution would be an essential step on “the path to justice.” ‘equity and reconciliation’.

I agree with them. Biden may not be able to end the federal death penalty, but he can and must ensure that no one currently on federal death row will be executed when President-elect Trump returns to the White House .

Most of the forty people awaiting execution at the federal facility in Terre Haute, Indianaare there because of arbitrariness, discrimination or misconduct by authorities in the death penalty system. Biden could commute their sentences and claim it was right that he did it.

But other federal death row inmates pose difficult choices for Biden and could make it difficult to persuade him to grant a mass commutation. The most difficult of these choices involves Dylan Roofwho killed nine black people in a church in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaevone of the Boston Marathon bombers; And Robert Bowerswho murdered 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

It is a big ask to suggest to the president that they commute their sentences, especially since in the first two of these cases the administration fought in court to uphold their death sentences, and in Bowers case, the administration opted for the death penalty. prosecutions initiated under President Trump.

Like the Associated Press reported Last January, referring to the president’s views on the death penalty, “President Joe Biden campaigned in part on a promise to abolish it, but took few concrete steps to do so.” The Justice Department has…shown its continued willingness to use it in certain cases. He “allowed the prosecution of only two death penalty cases he inherited, including another hate-motivated mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue.”

That’s why those who don’t want the president to commute all federal death sentences highlight Roof, Tsarnaev and Bowers. Let me give some examples of their arguments.

The National Review recently pushed against any mass clemency. He said the clemency granted to “unquestionable perpetrators of notorious acts of mass terror…. cannot be justified on any grounds other than that of resisting the death penalty in all areas. »

“It would be,” the editorial board argued, “another lousy coda to Biden’s presidency… if he simply repealed the law mandating death for terrorists, mass shooters, and other perpetrators of monstrosities in his own misguided quest for absolution. »

This “is not mercy; This is vandalism.

Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe columnist echoes this theme. “Biden,” he said, “is urged to grant a mass commutation of the 40 killers on federal death row, not as an act of compassion – not because they deserve mercy – but as an way to invalidate a federal law that activists disapprove of. of. “

Jacoby was particularly concerned about the idea that Biden might spare the lives of Tsarnaev and “other monsters on federal death row.” Not surprisingly, he noted: “These monsters include Dylann Roof and Robert Bowers. »

Jacoby concluded that such monsters “deserve…. the worst sanction permitted by our legal system.

Even Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., joined the melee. Like the others, his criticisms focused on Roof, Tsarnaev and Bowers. As he put it, if the president grants a mass pardon, “it would mean commuting the death sentences of the mass murderer who massacred black worshipers at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston…and of the perpetrator of the massacre from the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. .” McConnell took care of emphasize that none of them “experienced systemic racism” or benefited from “inadequate counseling.” With these comments, he was attempting to dismiss arguments that a Biden commutation might be justified to rectify judicial errors.

McConnell argued that a mass commutation “would mean that progressive policies are more important to the president than the lives taken by…murderers.”

And he went after Jacoby’s designated monsters on death row. Granting them clemency, McConnell concluded, “would mean that society’s most forceful condemnation of white supremacy and anti-Semitism must give way to legal mumbo jumbo.”

McConnell speaks as if he doesn’t understand what clemency is. Anyone who knows knows that leniency cannot rightly be called “legal mumbo jumbo”. On the contrary, the law remains on the sidelines and leaves immense room for maneuver to the president. Thus, presidents like Donald Trump have love the power of grace.

Jacoby puts it differently, saying Roof, Tsarnaev and Bowers don’t deserve pity. I agree, but only because no one can deserve pity. As I wrote: “Unlike justice,…mercy is precisely that which cannot be deserved. »

In fact, even those who oppose capital punishment might agree that Roof, Tsarnaev, and Bowers deserve severe punishment for their unspeakable crimes. When Biden commutes their sentences, as I hope he will, he will have to make it clear that they are “perpetrators of monstrosities.”

But that doesn’t address the question of how our country should respond to these horrific crimes. Now is the time for Biden to say that the government should not put to death even people who commit unspeakable things.

He will have a heavy burden of persuasion. It is much easier for abolitionists to convince people that we should not risk executing innocent people or perpetuating racial discrimination than it is to convince Americans that Roof, Tsarnaev, and Bowers should be spared.

But opposing the death penalty means opposing it, even in the most heinous cases. The American legal system offers other means of punishment; indeed, it may be that suffering a life sentence is the harshest punishment,

If the state should not aim to kill its citizens, and President Biden has said many things that suggest he shares this view, then he should extend clemency to everyone in the aisle of federal death, even to the worst of the worst.

Unless the president and other opponents of capital punishment are willing to say it and do it, capital punishment will never be abolished in the United States. Now is the perfect time to start this work.