Trump criticizes Biden for commuting death sentences of 37 convicts

“When you look at each person’s actions, you won’t believe he did this. It doesn’t make any sense. The families and friends (of the victims) are even more devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!” Trump lamented.

Among the beneficiaries are nine people convicted of murdering fellow prisoners, four for murders committed during bank robberies and another who killed a prison guard.

Biden had imposed a moratorium on the federal death penalty but was under pressure to take further action before leaving the White House on Jan. 20 amid announcements by the Republican that he would resume the practice.

The three convicts who did not benefit from the presidential pardon were Djokhar Tsarnaev, one of the perpetrators of the attack on the Boston Marathon in 2013; Dylann Roof, a white supremacist who killed nine black people in a Charleston church in 2015; and Robert Bowers, convicted of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these killers, I grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and I grieve that so many families have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said.

“But guided by my conscience and my experience… I am more convinced than ever that we must end the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” he added.