Growing Chorus of Advocates and Innocence Organizations Call on President Biden to Commute All Federal Death Sentences

(Washington, D.C., Monday, December 9, 2024) In letters released today that cite racial bias and other arbitrariness built into the federal death penalty system and its failure to improve public safety, hundreds of stakeholders from across the political and faith spectrums call on President Joe Biden to commute all federal death sentences before he leaves office. Their voices reflect the widespread, bipartisan concern about the broken federal death penalty system and a growing national shift away from capital punishment. 

The letters to the President released today, which were delivered to the White House in recent weeks and over the course of his presidency, can be accessed here. 

In a letter signed by more than 200 Black and indigenous faith leaders, the Faith Leaders of Color Coalition (FLOCC) explain that “[c]ommuting all federal death sentences would bring immediate benefits. It would acknowledge and help redress the racial bias built into the federal death penalty system, allow vast government resources to be redirected to policies that actually improve public safety, and allow the families of victims and incarcerated persons to focus on healing instead of living in legal limbo.” The FLOCC signatories hail from 35 states and the District of Columbia and represent hundreds of thousands of congregants.

Another letter was released today by Catholic Mobilizing Network (CMN), a national organization that mobilizes more than 30,000 Catholics from across the country to end the death penalty, including Catholic bishops, dioceses, state Catholic conferences, Catholic ministry leaders, religious communities, and people of goodwill. CMN Executive Director Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy and Board Chair Sr. Rita Ann Teichman, CSJ, invoke Pope Francis’s call on world leaders to engage in acts of mercy and bring “an end to every form of death penalty” as the Jubilee Year begins in December 2024. “As Catholics, we understand that every person is made in the image of God and that our Heavenly Father does not shut the door on anyone,” writes CMN. “By commuting these sentences, you could use your constitutional authority in a way that would mirror the spirit of reconciliation during this special Jubilee 2025 year. Indeed, your commutation of the entire federal row would be a tangible expression of your commitment to end the federal death penalty.”

Pope Francis himself, in public remarks at the Vatican on Sunday, December 8, asked for prayers for the prisoners on federal death row and appealed to President Biden to grant them clemency. During his Angelus address, the Pope said: “Let us pray that their sentences may be commuted or changed.”

This morning, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued its own call to President Biden to commute all federal death sentences in this action alert.