Pope Francis has called for commutations for people on death row in the US, while religious leaders, civil rights groups and current and former prosecutors are urging Joe Biden to take executive action on the death penalty.
In his Sunday prayer, Pope Francis, an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, said: “It comes to my heart to ask all of you to pray for the prisoners in the United States who are on death row. Let us pray that their sentences are commuted [or] changed.”
On Monday, anti-death penalty advocates released letters from hundreds of leaders asking the president to vacate federal death row before Donald Trump returns to office, drawing pleas from Black pastors, Catholic leaders, former prison officials, leading civil rights groups and advocates for the death penalty. mental health care. .
Biden is under increasing pressure to grant clemency to people facing the death penalty after recently announcing he was using his executive power to pardon his own son.
Related: There are growing calls for Biden to spare federal death row inmates before Trump regains office
Advocates expect the new administration will be deadly if Biden doesn’t take action. In the final year of Trump’s first term, the US government executed thirteen people in quick succession, killing more people in the federal system than under the previous ten presidents combined. The rushed trial claimed the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, prevented suspects from presenting new evidence and included execution methods that lawyers said were torturous.
Some of Trump’s first-term executions took place over objections from prosecutors and victims, and came after the U.S. Supreme Court quickly overturned lower courts’ decisions to halt the proceedings.
The Catholic Mobilizing Network, which represents 30,000 advocates including bishops and dioceses, urged Biden, who is Catholic, to commute any federal death penalty, writing: “We know that the federal death row, just like in the states, is marred by significant arbitrariness, including racial bias and the targeting of vulnerable individuals, such as those with intellectual disabilities, brain damage and severe mental illness. There is also a risk that innocent people will be put to death.”
Biden has previously opposed the death penalty and issued a moratorium on executions when he became president, but he has not yet indicated whether he will commute sentences.
There are currently 40 men on federal death row, and 38% of them are black, even though black people make up 14% of the U.S. population. Nearly one in four men was 21 years or younger at the time of the crime. And 43% of them come from just three states: Missouri, Texas and Virginia.
In another letter released Monday, 38 current and former prosecutors, attorneys general and former U.S. prosecutors and Justice Department officials detailed the death penalty’s shortcomings.
“We know that we have not always executed the worst of the worst, but instead have often put to death the unluckiest of the unlucky – the impoverished, the ill-represented, and the most broken,” they wrote. “Time and time again, we have executed people with long histories of debilitating mental illness, childhoods marred by unspeakable physical and mental abuse, and intellectual disabilities that prevented them from leading independent adult lives. We probably executed innocents too.” The group also pointed to studies showing that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to violence and does not reduce crime.
A group of current prison officials, including some who have overseen executions, pointed out the harm prison staff face in carrying out the death penalty: “We have witnessed the depression, suicide, substance abuse, civil unrest and other manifestations of trauma in our colleagues. that survey after survey has been documented among prison staff affected by executions, and those close to them.”
Families of murder victims also pleaded with Biden, writing that the death penalty “wastes many millions of dollars that could be better invested in programs that actually reduce crime and violence and meet the needs of families like ours.”
Related: Biden urged to use clemency powers to tackle US mass incarceration ‘crisis’
Others now urging Biden to act include the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a coalition of Latino advocacy groups and the Innocence Project.
Trump stepped up his pro-death penalty rhetoric during his campaign, calling for executions of “anyone caught selling drugs.” And Trump allies, through the right-wing manifesto Project 2025, have called for an expansion of the death penalty and for the US to “do everything possible to achieve finality” for the 40 people on federal death row.
In an interview before the election, Billie Allen, who is on federal death row and has long maintained his innocence, told the Guardian what it was like to witness swift executions under Trump’s first term: “I came in on 19- years old. These are people I grew up with. I see them executed, never to return, never to see or hear them laugh.”
He said he wished people recognized that death row inmates were capable of change: “The majority of people here are becoming better men for themselves, their families, friends and supporters.”
