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WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the death sentences of 37 of 40 federal inmates, taking action ahead of the return of Donald Trump who oversaw a sweeping number of lethal injections during his first term.
With less than a month left in office, Biden had faced growing calls from death penalty opponents to commute the sentences of those on death row to life in prison without parole, which the 37 will now serve.
The move leaves only a handful of high-profile killers who acted out of hate or terrorism facing the federal death penalty – for which there has been a moratorium under Biden.
“These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my Administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder,” Biden said in a statement.
“I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole,” he said.
The three inmates who will remain on federal death row include Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who helped carry out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and Dylann Roof, an avowed white supremacist who in 2015 shot and killed nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina.
Robert Bowers, who killed 11 Jewish worshippers during a 2018 mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, will also remain on death row.
Those commuted included nine people convicted of murdering fellow prisoners, four for murders committed during bank robberies and one who killed a prison guard.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who 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 stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” he added.
Biden campaigned for the White House as an opponent of the death penalty, and the Justice Department issued a moratorium on its use at the federal level after he became president.
During his reelection campaign, Trump spoke frequently of expanding the use of capital punishment to include migrants who kill American citizens and drug and human traffickers.
There had been no federal inmates put to death in the United States since 2003 until Trump resumed federal executions in July 2020.
He oversaw 13 by lethal injection during his final six months in power, more than any US leader in 120 years.
The last federal execution – which was carried out by lethal injection at a prison in Terre Haute, Indiana – took place on January 16, 2021, four days before Trump left office.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while six others – Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee – have moratoriums in place.
In 2024, there have been 25 executions in the United States, all at the state level.

NEWCASTLE, Australia: Former US Marine Corps pilot Daniel Duggan will be extradited from Australia to the United States over allegations that he illegally trained Chinese aviators.
Australia’s Attorney General Mark Dreyfus approved the extradition on Monday, ending the Boston-born 55-year-old’s nearly two-year attempt to avoid being returned to the US
Duggan, who served in the Marines for 12 years before immigrating to Australia and giving up his US citizenship, has been in a maximum-security prison since he was arrested in 2022 at his family home in the state of New South Wales. He is the father of six children.
Dreyfus confirmed in a statement on Monday he had approved the extradition but did not say when Duggan would be transferred to the US
“Duggan was given the opportunity to provide representations as to why he should not be surrendered to the United States. In arriving at my decision, I took into consideration all material in front of me,” Dreyfus said in the statement.
In May, a Sydney judge ruled Duggan could be extradited to the US, leaving an appeal to the attorney general as Duggan’s last hope of remaining in Australia.
In a 2016 indictment from the US District Court in Washington, D.C., unsealed in late 2022, prosecutors said Duggan conspired with others to provide training to Chinese military pilots in 2010 and 2012, and possibly at other times, without applying for an appropriate license.
Prosecutors say he received payments totaling around 88,000 Australian dollars ($61,000) and international travel from another conspirator for what was sometimes described as “personal development training.”
If convicted, Duggan faces up to 60 years in prison. He denies the allegations.
“We feel abandoned by the Australian government and deeply disappointed that they have completely failed in their duty to protect an Australian family,” his wife, Saffrine Duggan, said in a statement on Monday. “We are now considering our options.”