President Biden on Monday commuted the death sentences to life sentences for 37 of the 40 men who are on the federal government’s death row. Those spared include child killers and mass murderers. Ironically, 36 of those 40 sentences were under a 1994 law written by then-Senator Biden, which designated dozens of new capital offenses. Biden’s decision came two days before Christmas.
While Democrats oppose the death penalty, Americans overall support the death penalty by at least a 3-to-2 margin. Americans support the death penalty by margins of more than 2-to-1 when sentences are carried out on a more timely basis.
Some support the death penalty to achieve “justice.” The sisters of two of the 11 people murdered in 2018 at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh wrote that anything other than death for the perpetrator “would be a grave injustice as well as a disservice to the lives, legacies and memories of our deceased family members and to us, the immediate victim-family members that live this nightmare each and every day.”
Others point to evidence that lives may be saved by deterring future murders.
Twenty-seven states have the death penalty, but only 11 states and the federal government have held executions since 2020. The Trump administration executed 13 people, but the federal government has not executed anyone under Biden.
Like quickly selling border wall parts for pennies on the dollar, commuting these murderers' sentences may be another way for Biden to hinder Trump’s agenda. If the commutations happen, it will be difficult for Trump to resume executions.
Among those whose sentences were commuted are an ex-Marine who murdered three people (two young girls and, later, a female naval officer), a man who kidnapped and murdered a 12-year-old girl, and two men who kidnapped for ransom five people that they then murdered.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three and wounded more than 250 others, was among the three who didn’t receive a commutation.
The strongest support for the death penalty comes from those with the lowest incomes and education levels — the very people who are most likely to be victims of crime. Conversely, the strongest opposition comes from those who make over $200,000 per year and have graduate school educations.
Many opponents point to the costs of the death penalty, including costly trials and appeals processes. The threat of the death penalty can, however, also save taxpayer money by getting murderers to agree to plea bargains.
Dylann Roof, who murdered nine at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., agreed to plead guilty in order to avoid the death penalty. Without a possible death penalty, there would have been no reason to make a plea. After all, a life sentence would have been the inevitable outcome. Nicolas Cruz, the Parkland, F.L., school shooter who murdered seventeen people, also pleaded guilty and fought against the death penalty in his hearing.
Cases like these show that there are murderers who fear the death penalty more than life in prison. But there is other evidence of the death penalty's deterrence effect. Most peer-reviewed academic research contends that each additional execution causes there to be eight to 18 fewer murders.
Others argue that the death penalty is racist. But, in fact, whites are executed more frequently for murder than blacks are. From 1977 to 2011, the last year for which the FBI has compiled data, 64.7 percent of people executed were white. That is despite the fact that whites committed only 47 percent of the murders. In 2020, 64 percent of executed people were still white.
Nor is concern that innocent people will be executed a valid one. Between 1989 and 2014, about 260,000 Americans were convicted of murder, with DNA evidence available in about 12,000 cases. According to the Innocence Project, just 34 people convicted of murder in those years were later exonerated by DNA evidence. Of those 34 people, only 18 had been sentenced to death, and none had been executed.
DNA evidence has rarely shown that an innocent person is convicted for any crime. And there’s never been DNA evidence that the federal government executed the wrong person.
The death penalty saves lives and can also be used to save tax dollars. When guilt is beyond a reasonable doubt, the use of the death penalty can help fight back against murderers and protect the innocent.
John R. Lott Jr. is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. He served as senior adviser for research and statistics in the Office of Justice Programs and the Office of Legal Policy at the Justice Department.
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